THE LAST AGONY 


OF THE 


GREAT BORE. 


Second Zoition. 


Be OR. Wiser 


When “lobbyists” no longer steal, 

And pay for what they stole before; 
When the first locomotive’s wheel 

Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel’s bore;— 


Till then let Cummings blaze away, 
And Miller’s ‘‘friends” blow up the globe; 


But when you see that blessed day 
Then order your ascension robe! 


— OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, (altered.) 


BOS LON: 
EH. P. DUTTON & CO, 135 WASHINGTON STREET. 
1868. 





In the following pages I have made free use of papers I have 


heretofore laid before the public. 





Printed by Wricut & Porrer, No. 4 Spring Lane, Boston. 


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invasion of the prerogatives of the legislature is threatened. 
The annual interest of our public debt, including premium on 
gold, is about $1,294,000 in currency. This amount is to be paid 
annually by taxation. Ultimately the State will realize from the 
railroad corporations sinking funds to a sufficient amount to 
reduce the principal to about $12,000,000 ; but the State pays 
the interest on the gross amount above stated, until from these 
various sources the debt is reduced to $12,000,000. 


RAGA 
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In the following pages I have made free use of papers I have 


heretofore laid before the public. 








Printed by Wricut & Porrer, No. 4 Spring Lane, Boston. 


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\Ilag Sch hewmer 





THE LAST AGONY. 


The tactics of the Ring have again prevailed. Five and a 
quarter millions for future expenditure, and $350,000 for 
annual interest on past expenditures, were appropriated by the 
last legislature, to be added, with unknown/other millions, to 
the five millions already expended—all to be sunk in that all- 
devouring maelstrom, the Hoosac Tunnel. , $* To what purpose 
is this waste?” 

Worse than this. The legislature, having placed careful 
restrictions and conditions upon the expenditure of the appro- 
priation, their purposes are threatened with defeat by executive 
appointees. The Massachusetts Bill of Rights, in that grand 
compendium of the rights of the people, closes with the follow- 
ing declaration: ‘‘In the government of this Commonwealth, 
the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and 
judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never 
exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them ; 
the judicial shall never exercise the legislative or executive 
powers, or either of them; to the end it may be a government 
of laws and not of men.” Thus the fathers said—thus their 
children have practised. The design of the following pages is 
to awaken the attention of the people to a dangerous attempt 
to put aside this fundamental doctrine. 

Before discussing this specific matter, it will be useful to state 
briefly the financial condition of the State, and more fully the 
condition of the enterprise in relation to which this alarming 
invasion of the prerogatives of the legislature is threatened. 

The annual interest of our public debt, including premium on 
gold, is about $1,294,000 in currency. This amount is to be paid 
annually by taxation. Ultimately the State will realize from the 
railroad corporations sinking funds to a sufficient amount to 
reduce the principal to about $12,000,000; but the State pays 
the interest on the gross amount above stated, until from these 
various sources the debt is reduced to $12,000,000. 


wh & AGS 


4 


With the exception of about five millions heretofore squan- 
dered on the Hoosac Tunnel, this debt was incurred generally 
for necessary and wise purposes. For any other purposes, the 
incurring of public debt is a crime; for even these purposes, 
such a debt is a serious burden—still, it is a burden which the 
people bear as cheerfully as they may, and they will pay the 
debt to its uttermost farthing. | 

With such a debt confronting them, the people had the right 
to expect that their servants in the legislature would not 
unnecessarily or unwisely add a feather’s weight to this burden. 
How was this just expectation met ? 

In the full view of these figures, the legislature authorized 
appropriations of $5,250,000 for future work on the Hoosae 
Tunnel. Is this money to be expended for a necessary or wise 
purpose ? 

Before examining this whole matter in its bearings upon the 
answer to this question, let us see what will be the amount of 
the burden which this appropriation will impose upon the 
people. Assuming, for the present, that five millions will com- 
plete the tunnel, and in seven years—an assumption which, as 
will abundantly appear upon full examination, is supremely 
absurd—to what will the expenditures amount before the work 
is completed, so as to re-imburse the State to the value ofa . 
single dollar, financially or commercially ? 

Two hundred and fifty thousand of the five million dollars 
are to be expended previous to October 1, at which time the 
work is to be put under contract, to be completed in seven 
years. There will then be $4,750,000 to be expended in seven 
years on the tunnel. This gives an annual expenditure: of 
$678,570, or a semi-annual expenditure of $339,285. Com- 
puting the interest on $250,000 for seven years from next 
October, and the interest on each half year’s expenditure from 
the dates of the several periods, we have the following results :— 


Expended previous to October 1, : . $250,000 00 
Interest for seven years, . : : : .*' 128,140 90) 
Balance of appropriation, . . ‘ : . 4,750,000 00 
Interest of half yearly payments, . é . 719,350 00 








$5,847,490 00 


5 
u 


Add other expenditures from May 1 to October 
1, 1868, say . : : ; P . $125,000 00 
Interest for seven years, . ; : iw ist. 64,076 00 


——— — 


Total sum from May 1, . 4 ‘ . $6,036,560 00 


Here, then, is the admitted cost after May Ist. Of course, it 
need not be-argued that the friends of the tunnel would not 
have proposed an appropriation larger than what they believed 
the tunnel would cost. Assuming that they honestly believed 
it would be completed for five millions, they were too shrewd 
to name a higher sum than they considered necessary. By 
their own admission, then, it will cost $6,036,560 to complete 
the tunnel after May 1. Bear in mind that this amount 
includes nothing for equipment, station-houses, turn-outs, &c., 
&c.; nothing for building the road west of the west portal and 
connecting with the Troy and Boston road, which items will 
amount to a million more. <A double track must be built, 
which will cost more than another million. These two items 
would increase the cost to $8,036,560.* This is not my estimate 
of cost, but it is the ultimate cost on the basis of the proposed 
contract. | 

Now, compare this admitted cost henceforth with estimates 
made by the friends of the enterprise in times past. In 1868, 
Mr. Brooks estimated the entire cost at $3,218,325. The esti- 
mates of other engineers, made for him at the same time, varied 
from $5,050,000 to $3,773,000. Mr. Latrobe estimated the 
total cost of completing after November, 1866, at $3,633,640, 
not including interest. This would add about a million to his 

* For fear it may be supposed that I have put the cost under these two items too 
high, let me refer briefly to the following facts, which have hitherto escaped notice. 

On the Troy and Boston Railroad, near North Adams, there is a tunnel, known as the 
“small tunnel,’’ some three hundred to five hundred feet long, which is barely large 
enough to let a train pass through. This must be enlarged to full-sized tunnel. 

At the west end of the tunnel Mr. Haupt made a single track excavation about five 
hundred feet long, and supported it throughout on hemlock timber. At the end of this 
distance the roof of the excavation broke through to the surface of the ground. Mr. 
Haupt then excavated an open cut about one hundred feet long down to grade, and put 
in side walls and a stone arch for that distance, the size being for one track. When Mr. 
Brooks commenced operations, he raised the grade about six feet, and of course the one 
hundred feet of stone tunnel made by Mr. Haupt became worse than valueless, because it 
must ultimately be entirely removed. Meantime the five hundred feet of excavation, 
supported by hemlock timber, has fallen in, and now scarcely furnishes room for the 


drainage from Mr. Farren’s work. The whole of this must be enlarged and arched, or 
made an open cut, either of which would be very expensive. 


6 


estimate ; and yet, after nearly two years of expenditure, 
amounting to between one and two millions, the friends of the 
tunnel confess to a cost hereafter nearly a hundred per cent. 
higher than Mr. Latrobe’s estimate two years ago. I refer to 
this now to show how utterly unreliable are all estimates made 
by the friends of the tunnel. And while upon this topic, I will 
add the past cost to the admitted future cost, for the purpose 
of showing that the only estimates approaching correctness 
have been those made by the opponents of the Commonwealth’s 
assuming this work. 

The cost of the tunnel to the State, up to May 1, 1868, as 
computed by Hon. George Walker, Chairman of the Finance 
Committee of the House, was $4,708,110 in gold scrip. The 
interest on this, at six per cent., compounded semi-annually for 
seven years from October 1, would be $2,472,000. We have 
then the following table showing the cost of the tunnel, based 
upon actual cost to May 1, and cost admitted by its friends 
after that date :— . 


Cost, according to Mr. Walker, , . $4,708,110 00 
Interest to October 1, 1875, . ; ; . 2,472,000 00 
Cost of completion after October1,  . . 6,036,560 00 





Total cost to the State, . . ; . $13,216,670 00 


This, then, upon the admission of its friends, will be the cost 
of the tunnel, supposing it will be completed in seven years. 
Upon this sum the people of the State will be compelled to pay 
interest, amounting now to $350,000 annually, and gradually 
increasing to October, 1875, at and after which date it will 
amount to about $660,000 annually in gold, or about $800,000 
at present value of currency. We must pay this annual tax 
ourselves, and we transmit this and the whole of the principal 
to posterity. 

Remember, there will be no income to reduce this amount. 
I throw out the pretended income from the road east of the 
mountain. It is simply absurd to suppose that such a road can 
more than pay running expenses. I care not what the contract 
may be with the corporations which operate it. No railroad 
corporation will work a road for any length of time at a loss; 
and when it appears, as it will appear, that, even if the work on 


7 


the tunnel is carried through to the bitter end, its completion 
will not be reached for an indefinite period, these corporations 
will find or make a loop-hole in the contract—the State will be 
cheated, as she always has been. 

This, then, is the annual burden which the last legislature 
attempted to fasten upon the people of the State— from $660,000 
to $800,000—a larger sum than has been appropriated for all 
the educational institutions of the State, by Colony, Proyince 
and Commonwealth, since the Puritans founded Harvard 
College ! 

Hitherto I have figured the ultimate cost of the tunnel upon 
the basis of actual expenditures to May 1, and of the assump- 
tion that five millions will complete it. It will be instructive 
to examine more particularly the estimates which have been 
~ made from time to time by the most candid and most compe- 
tent gentlemen who have considered this subject, and compare 
them with results subsequently accomplished. 


ESTIMATES OF Cost HERETCFORE MADE. 


In 1848, when the charter was granted, the petitioners 
proved (!) that the road and tunnel could be built for 
$3,500,000; that the entire road from Troy to Greenfield 
(exclusive of the tunnel,) would be built in eighteen months ; 
and that the tunnel itself could be completed, without the aid 
of shafts, in fifteen hundred and fifty-six working days—yjust 
five years! That prediction was made twenty years ago. 

I will not produce, in detail, from speeches, pamphlets, 
reports of legislative committees, &c., &c., estimates and pre- 
dictions of a similar character, all for a similar purpose, that 
is, to delude the legislature into granting some favor, and all 
falsified by events. These statements were generally made by 
parties directly interested in the tunnel, and on that account, 
it may be said, were to be received with allowances. Referring 
to them as only furnishing proof of the general proposition 
that all estimates heretofore made have proved worthless, we 
come to the first report upon this subject, to which no excep- 
tion like the above can be taken, at least, by the friends of the 
tunnel,—the report of Messrs. Brooks, Felton and Holmes, 
Commissioners, &c., &c. In that report, (pp. 55, 56 and 57,) 
their own estimate and those of other engineers are given, of 


8 


cost, including interest eg construction, of completing the 
tunnel, as follows :— 


Commissioners’ estimate, : : : . $3,218,328 00 


Mr. Storrow’s ty é : : . 938,173,368 00 
Mr. Latrobe’s Ne ‘ . 2,837,485 00 
Mr. Laurie, with central shaft and eid labor, 8,480,780 00 

et ry x and machines,. 8,050,180 00 


The Commissioners’ estimate of the entire cost of the road 
both sides of the mountain and the tunnel, including what the 
State had advanced previous to 1862, including interest com- 
pounded at five per cent. for eight years, also including depot 
building, shops, rolling-stock, &c., &c., for the entire line, was 
$5,719,530. 

Among the items, the Commissioners estimate the central 
shaft, “20 feet in diameter, including meal gerys 1,027 feet 
in depth, containing 11,944 cubic yards, at $22 per yard, 
$262,768.” Mr. Grice s report last year gives the cost of 
the central shaft, including machinery, up to January 1, 1868, 
as $269,924. Of the 1,030 feet, 583 feet have been sunk, 
costing seven thousand dollars more than the Commissioners’ 
estimate of the cost of the whole. Of course, as the depth 
increases, the cost, owing to increase of water, extra distance 
of raising water and material, and increased liability to accident, 
will be much greater than heretofore. 

But, without comparing items, let us compare the total 
results up to January Ist, with the estimates of total cost. The 
cost of work done by the State since 1862, has been as follows, 
with interest compounded at six per cent. :— 


Cost for two years to November 1, 13864, (House 

Doc. No. 3, 1865, p. 25,) °. : i . $415,483 00 
Interest from May, 1864, to January 1, 1868, . 100,608 00 
Cost from November 1, 1864, to November 1, 

1865, (House Doc. No. 4, 1866, p.53,). . 477,142 00 
Interest from May, 1865, to January 1, 1868, . 81,528 00 
Cost from Nov. 1, 1865, to Nov. 1, 1866, . . 990,904 00 
Interest from May, 1866, to January 1, 1868, . 61,249 00 
Cost from November 1, 1866, to January 1,1868, 603,666 00 
Interest from June, 1867, to January 1, 1868, . 21,218 00 
Total expenditure by State, 

January 1, 1868, . : : : ; . $2,851,798 00 





9 


It thus appears that of the Commissioners’ estimate of cost 
in 18638, $3,218,323, very nearly three-fourths, is already spent. 
What portion of the whole has been done for this money ? 

The amount excavated has been as follows :— 


TotaL WoRK DONE TO JANUARY 1, 1868. 
Tunnel Proper. 

In 1864, . . : : : : . 00 cubic yards. 
ESOS. ; : : : : . 4,484 < ‘? 
Hers 's 4 : : : : Oe iat he ed 
BeOt,. A iethiae - : : 14,410 * ce 


In 1864, . : ; : : : . 1,092 cubic yards.” 
IPG e eta ulin. ik fi 0.4 a cvaiy yardgsAO,, 66, <1 $ 
GUE a cy ae re MEE ae sacs ees 
Denar ae tie tel ee PONE Egg cella | cae 


West Approach. 
290 feet, 80 cubic yards per foot, . . 8,700 cubic yards.t 


Total excavation by State, : . 42,936 cubic yards. 


Now the total amount of excavation to be done at the com- 
mencement was as follows :— 


24,862 feet entire Tunnel, (18 cubic yards 

per foot,) . ; : : : . 447,516 cubic yards.t 
Add for extra excavation for arching 2,004 

feet, 12 yards per foot, : “ . 24,048 He 
Central shaft, 1,037 feet,12 yards per foot, 12,444 “ 


Total excavation at commencement, 484,008 cubic yards. 


* Including 300 cubic yards of earth. 

{ Iam at a loss to know how to fill out this item. Mr. Latrobe (p. 48,) seems to sug- 
gest that 10,000 cubic yards have been taken out at the west end. Now, the whole 
amount of excavation at the east end and the west shaft, working at three faces during 
the year, has been only 14,410 cubic yards. It certainly is inconceivable that five-sevenths 
as many yards have been taken out at one face of the extremely difficult material at the 
west end as have been removed at three faces of good material. I have, however, cred- 
ited the full amount, allowing 30 cubic yards to each foot of progress. Everything relating 
to this part of the work is obscure; but I allow an extravagant estimate. 

{ This estimate of 18 yards per foot is based upon the size of the tunnel recommended 
by Mr. Latrobe and then adopted. I infer that the size has been reduced, as the specifi- 
cations require sixteen and two-fifths yards per foot. In a subsequent calculation I will 
give them the benefit of this slight reduction. 


2 


10 


Deduct excavation : 
By Haupt & Co., (cubic yards,) 28,866 
State, (cubic yards,) . « 42,936 





71,802 cubic yards. 
Leaving amount remaining undone Janu- 


ary 1, 1868, . : ; : . 412,206 cubic yards. 





It thus appears that the Commissioners estimated the cost of 
completing the Tunnel, in 1863, at $3,218,323 ; that there has 
been expended since then, $2,851,798; that of the whole work, 
(484,008 cubic yards at the commencement,) 71,802 yards 
have been excavated ; that is, one-seventh, or 14.8, per cent. of 
the work has been done, and three-quarters of the estimate is 
spent. 

Or, to take the more correct view of the proportion of work 
done since 1862,— 


Total excavation at commencement, . 484,008 cubic yards. 
Deduct excavation by Haupt & Co., . 28,866 6 


Remaining to be done, 1868, . - . 455,142 cubie yards. 
Excavation by State to January 1, 1868, 42,936 °* 6 





That is, a little over one-eleventh, or mine and four-tenths per 
cent. of the work has been done in five years, and three- 
quarters of the estimate is spent. 

All the estimates as to the time of completing the tunnel 
have proved equally unreliable. I will not repeat the predic- 
tions of its early friends; their longest periods expired long: 
ago ; but come down to the calculations of the Commissioners, 
in their first report above referred to. After making a detailed 
statement of expected progress, they say, (p. 61,) that by 
hand labor alone it would take eleven years and four months to 
finish the whole work ; but by introducing machines, (p. 61,) 
the total time would be seven and a half years: and they add: 
‘It is quite possible that the machine drills may be used in 
sinking the central shaft, &c. The chances of increased speed 
from this source are, perhaps, sufficient to counterbalance any 
delay likely to occur in other parts of the work, and make from 
seven and a half to eight years a reasonable estimate of the 
time required to complete the work from the time it is vigor- 


11 


ously undertaken.” Well, it was ‘‘ vigorously undertaken ” in 
the summer and fall of 1863. Nearly five of the eight years 
have elapsed, and, including work done by Haupt & Co., one- 
seventh of the work is done! 

Mr. Latrobe, in his first report, (House No. 80, 1867,) makes 
an estimate of cost and time of completing. Of course, with 
the results of five years’ work before him, his estimates are 
made with great caution and with large margins. Time alone 
can test his estimates as it has those of the first Commissioners. 
He thinks the tunnel ‘can be completed in eight and a half 
years from January 1, 1867, and that it will cost $5,635,640, 
not including interest. 

A very brief comparison of Mr. Latrobe’s estimates, with 
actual results of this last year, will illustrate the reliability of 
any estimates. Mr. Latrobe calculates, (House Doc. No. 80, 
1867, p. T7 ef seq.,) that the east end enlargement would be 
completed in September, 1867. At the time this calculation 
was made, there were 37,000 cubic yards of excavation to com- 
plete the enlargement. The actual amount removed up to 
January, 1868, as stated by Mr. Crocker, (Senate Doc. No. 20, 
1868, p. 9,) has been 4,591 cubic yards ; so that instead of the 
whole 37,000 cubic yards being excavated in eight months, less 
than one-eighth of the whole was excavated in twelve months. 
Again, Mr. Latrobe estimates the amount of excavation required 
to complete the enlargement at the west shaft*to be, in Decem- 
ber, 1866, 17,040 cubic yards, and that the enlargement can be 
completed in a year. The actual amount of excavation in the 
enlargement at the west shaft during thirteen months has 
been :— | 


East heading, . P ; ‘ : . 820 cubic yards. 
West heading, . : ; : ; . 1,280 « ‘< 





Total, ‘ : ; : : . 2,100 cubic yards. 


Thus, instead of excavating the whole, 17,040 cubic yards 
in a year, they have actually excavated 2,100 yards, or less 
than one-eighth in thirteen months. . 

Again, to illustrate the value of estimates of cost, Mr. Latrobe 
(House No. 80, 1867, p. 82,) gives the following 


12 


ESTIMATE OF COST. 


54,000 cubic yards in enlargements at $5, . $270,000 00 
825,000 <« ‘¢ heading and bottom, at an | 

average of $7.50, ; . 2,487,500 00 
7,538 c. y’ds in paneindes of content seas $30, 226,140 00 
1,000 ft. linear at west end, next portal, $400, 400,000 00 
LODO ME pte SCAN NEE TO PES shaft, $300, 300,000 00 


$3,633,640 00 


Now the whole amount of excavation since that estimate 
was made has been, in round numbers, 25,808 cubic yards. 
The expenditures for that period were $603,666 ; giving twenty- 
three dollars as the cost of each cubic yard of excavation last 
year, instead of five or seven and a half dollars. The average 
cost of the whole, was double Mr. Latrobe’s estimate of cost 
of removing the demoralized rock. 

I have dwelt upon this, perhaps, unnecessarily long; but it 
seemed important to show how utterly unreliable all estimates 
of cost or time have heretofore been, even when made, as those 
{ have referred to were, by the most competent men in the coun- 
try. Nobody questions, least of all do I question Mr. Latrobe’s 
integrity, impartiality and capacity. If any man could make 
reliable estimates, he could. 

Kqually unreliable have been the estimates of scientific 
experts as to geological developments. Take for instance the 
following extract from President Hitchcock before the legisla- 
tive committee, January 81, 1854: “Ido not think there will 
be any masonry or arching required. Jor instance, if the 
boring machine should be found to operate well and the tunnel 
should be bored through the mountain, I do not believe it 
would require any more masonry for its support than would 
be necessary for a good sound stick of timber with an auger- 
hole bored through it.’ Compare prediction with results. 
Already over half a million have been spent for extraordinary 
excavation, masonry and arching at West Approach. It will 
require as much more to finish it to West Shaft. How much 
amore will be required for similar ‘‘ unforeseen difficulties” as 
the work progresses, nobody can tell. 

From this examination—and it might be carried to almost 
any extent with the same results—it is perfectly apparent that 


13 


no estimates as to the future are entitled to the slightest confi- 
dence; and that the only basis for a reliable calculation of the 
cost and time of completing the tunnel will be found in the 
actual results of the work for the last year or two. 

The friends of the tunnel surely cannot complain of our 
adopting the results of these two years as the basis of a calcu- 
lation for the future. ‘T'wo years ago they proclaimed that up 
to that time heavy expenditures had been incurred in making 
preparations for effective work, but then they were all ready 
and would show great résults during the next year. Last year 
they were ready, and they assured the legislature that if the 
ensuing year did not show results justifying their claims, they 
would give up their case. Well, they have had their trial year, 
and now, on the basis of the work of this year, 


WHAT WILL IT Cost TO COMPLETE THE TUNNEL ? 


On page six, we have found the amount remaining undone 
January 1, 1868, was 412,206 cubic yards. 

Now, the expenditure for these fourteen months We been 
$603,666 ; the total excavation, 25,808 cubic yards; the exca- 
vation remaining to be done, 412,206 cubic yards. The prob- 
lem is avery simple one: If the excavation of 25,808 yards 
cost $603,666, what will 412,206 yards cost? Answer, 
$9,640,000. 

But this is not the whole of the cost. It does not include 
interest. For how long shall the interest be computed? If it 
required fourteen months to excavate 25,808 yards, how long 
will it take to excavate 412,206 yards? Answer, 224 months, 
or eighteen years and eight months! ? 

Now it will not be said that Mr. Crocker has not done all 
that was in his power. He knew the assurances of great 
progress which were given last winter. He felt as no other 
man could feel, that his reputation was at stake; and he 
applied himself for every day and every hour of the time, with 
enthusiasm, energy and will, for all of which qualities I cheer- 
fully admit he is distinguished, to show great results. That 
Mr. Crocker has accomplished all that was practicable in push- 
ing the headings, I think no one will doubt. As Mr. Latrobe 
says, “The heading is being pushed wildly on, under the spe- 
cious idea that popular favor will be best propitiated by a mere 


14 


progress in running feet.” (P. 538. The italics are Mr. 
Latrobe’s.) In the headings, then, Mr. Crocker has undoubt- 
edly done all that was possible. The enlargement might have 
been pushed more vigorously, and it may be hereafter, until 
it overtakes the headings. Suppose this is done, and that two 
more faces are opened, a year or two hence, from the central 
shaft, and allowing that on these accounts the time, after 
opening the faces from the central shaft, may be shortened 
one-half, say to eleven years; dividing the whole cost into 
eleven equal parts, each part representing the expenditure of a 
year, and computing the interest on each half-year’s expendi- 
ture, from the time of the expenditure to the end of the eleven 
years, compounded semi-annually, and we have the following 
result :-— 


Cost, without interest, . ; ; . $9,640,000 00 
Expenditure each year, $964, 000. 
Interest, 5 ; . 8,728,690 00 








Total cost of puaanlagee nies seen Jan., 
1868, including interest, . : : $18,368,690 00 


But this is not all. I had almost overlooked the insignificant 
item of a million or two spent last year, or to be spent here- 
after, on the railroad. Indeed, it is not strange that this item 
should be omitted, for there is not the slightest allusion to the 
amount expended on the road in the reports. I do not charge 
an intention to deceive ; but I ‘do say, that in an official report 
to the legislature upon a public work of this character and 
magnitude, there is not the slightest allusion to an expenditure 
of nearly half a million dollars. Ido not suppose that this 
omission would not have been discovered by the legislature ; 
but I confess that, though pretty familiar with this whole sub- 
ject, and perhaps specially suspicious of trickery, this omission 
did not occur to me until after all my calculations of cost had 
been made and printed. 

In a paper published last winter Mr. Shute states the expen- 
ditures on the railroad last year to have been $371,296. (This 
amount, added to the amount stated by Mr. Crocker, viz., 
$603,666, gives $974,962 as the amount of money taken from 
the treasury and expended on the entire work last year !) 


15 


Mr. Farren’s contract provides for completing the road to 
the mountain for $545,000. Of this, $371,296 having been 
paid him, we assume that he will finish the road for the balance, 
$173,000. 

Another item of heavy cost is the building of the road from 
the west end of the tunnel to the Troy and Boston Railroad. 
A refence to Mr. Latrobe’s report, (pp. 45 and 46,) and Mr. 
Crocker’s, (pp. 17 and 18,) shows that this is to bea very 
expensive work, made more expensive by the culpable neglect 
of the Commissioners in not securing the right of way, before 
the land had so largely increased in price. This road, two 
miles long, will cost, if ever built, half a million dollars. I 
put it down, to avoid cavil, at $250,000. 

Again, if the tunnel is ever opened for use, the road must 
be Atipped:: and if run by another corporation, it must pay, 
directly or indirectly, for its fair proportion of the equipment: 
of the whole line. Now the average cost per mile of equip- 
ment—that is, for passenger and freight cars and locomotives— 
in this State is over $8,000. ‘To do the same traffic, this road 
must have an equal equipment, that is, for 424 miles, $340,000. 

To this must be added, for shops, station-houses, &c., &c., 
&c., say, at a low figure, $100,000. 

Again, Mr. Crocker says a railroad bridge over Deerfield 
River near the tunnel, estimated by Mr. Field, chief engineer, 
to cost $25,000, Git will probably cost more than double that,) 
and acommon road over the same river, must be built. Put 
them down as costing only $30,000. 

‘¢ A new road up the Deerfield, from the mouth of the tun- 
nel,” is a recently discovered necessity, ‘‘ so important,” gran- 
diloquently says Mr. Crocker, “in the development of this 
section of Massachusetts.” One would suppose that the 
‘‘ Deerfield River’? was almost navigable above this point; at 
least, available, when this section is ‘developed,’ for water 
power, whereas it is a mere mountain brook, with hardly 
water enough in the summer, a mile or two above the tunnel, 
to turn a child’s mimic water-wheel. But this section of Mas- 
sachusetts is to be “‘ developed.” It will next be found to be a 
political, as well as a financial necessity to build the common 
roads, as well as the railroads, of Franklin County. 


16 


Indeed, Mr. Crocker, (p. 21,) recommends the “ improve- 
ment of the common road over the mountain,” the State 
nominally to aid other parties; really, in the end, as in the 
case of the tunnel, to do the whole. 

How much will these two, the road up the Deerfield River 
and the road over the mountain, cost? Idon’t know. Mr. 
Crocker has not told us how far up the valley of the Deerfield 
is to be * developed.”” We must guess. Call both $20,000. 

We have then the following items of additional cost :— 


Finishing of railroad east of mountain, . . $173,000 00 

es Thies west of oy ; . 250,000 00 
Kquipment, : : ‘ : : ; . 840,000 00 
Station-houses, shops, &c., &c., . : : ~. 100,000 00 
Bridges across Deerfield River, . : ; - 980,000 00 
Roads up the river, &c., over the mountain, .. 20,000 00 





oe mee 


Total, joo ea ee be eee ee 


More than one-half of this amount must be spent at once ; 
the balance might be postponed till near the time of opening 
the tunnel.. It will be fair, then to compute the interest on 
half this amount, say on $450,000, for ten years. This, com- 
pounded annually, would be $354,690. We have then the fol- 
lowing as the aggregate of the various items of cost of finishing 
the tunnel and road from this date :— 


Cost of tunnel and interest, (page 11,) . . $13,368,690 00 
Cost of additional items, (above,) . : : 913,000 00 
Interest on one-half, say $450,000, . : : 304,690 00 





Total cost of road and tunnel, . . $14,636,380 00 


I need hardly repeat that this result comes from premises 
mainly taken. from official reports of the special friends of the 
tunnel. I have reduced the time one-half from what it would 
be at the rate of last year’s work; I have made no allowance 
for the additional cost which the inevitable increase of water 
and other unforeseen difficulties must cause ; so far as estimates 
are made, I have followed the reports whenever they have given 
us any light, and in other cases have put the cost, as I honestly 


a 17 


believe, fifty per cent. below what will be found to be the actual 
cost, should the work ever be done; and: there is the result. 

I am well aware that the friends of the tunnel will exclaim, 
‘‘ These figures are too extravagant to be entitled to a moment’s 
consideration.”’ Such has always been the cry with which they 
have tried to evade the effect of facts. I have only to reply: 
For twenty years you have made predictions which have uni- 
formly and grossly failed, and no man not afflicted with tunnel 
on the brain will place the slightest reliance on any similar pre- 
dictions from the same parties. Careful, candid men, of large 
acquaintance with such works, sympathizing with the enter- 
prise, but under no bias which could lead them to hazard their 
professional reputations by making too favorable estimates, have, 
from time to time, made estimates of costs; but results have 
invariably shown the, cost to be two to four times larger than 
their figures. What are we, the tax-payers, todo? Let you 
go on, after misleading, deluding, humbugging us out of our 
money, year after year, and place the same faith in your mis- 
taken calculations, your falsified predictions, your broken prom- 
ises? No, gentlemen; it may be sport to you, but it is death 
to us. We mean to look this thing in the face. For five years 
you have had the State treasury at your control. We have 
given youvall you asked for—time and money to fulfil your 
promises—and if ever the time is to be when we must disen- 
chant ourselves of all hallucinations and appeal to results, the 
time has come. If five years of work, carried on in your own 
way, has not brought us to a point where we can test the cost 
by actual results we shall never reach it; and we must drive 
on wildly, blindly, at whatever cost, or stop where we are. 

IT repeat, then, most emphatically, there is no other reliable 
method of ascertaining the cost of completing the tunnel than 
by making the past the basis of estimates for the future, and 
when we take the results of the best year in the past, no char ge 
of unfairness can be sustained. 

But it may be claimed that incidental expenses have been 
proportionally larger last year than they will be hereafter. I 
take the liberty to doubt. Mr. Crocker’s policy has been to 
show the largest possible results with the least possible expen- 
diture, and accordingly his whole system (if system it can be 
called,) has been one of makeshifts; penny wise and pound 

3 


18 : 


foolish, carried to such an extent as to call forth the repeated 
disapproval and rebukes of Mr. Latrobe. 

Indeed, a comparison of the expenditures for machinery, 
buildings, &c., during the last two years, gives the following 
result: (Report, 1868, p. 23.) 





From Nov. 1, 1865, 
to Nov. 1, 1866. 


From Nov. 1, 1866, 
to Jan. 1, 1868. 














Deerfield dam, . : : : , : $2,063 00 - - 
East End dam, . J ‘ : : : 266 00 _ 

Wheelpits and house, j ‘ 3 ‘ 24,845 00 $2,300 00 
Gates and overflow, . : : f : 566 00 = 

Race, or canal, i 4 : : . 2,064 00 325 00 
Buildings, East End, . ‘ . ; 3,837 00 - 

e Central shaft, ‘ 4 ; - 2,406 00 1,953 00 

“ West End shaft, : - : 6,933 00 1,028 00 

ts general account, : : ‘ 1,842 00 149 00 
Machinery, Deerfield dam, : : - 523 00 _ 

East End, : A : 4 66,494 00 43,231 00 

: Central Shaft, .. : : 28,891 00 7,173 00 

sc West shaft, . ‘ : ; 20,723 00 17,909 00 

43 West End, . : . : 503 00 36 00 

“ general account, . : J 43,673 00 1,370 00 

Totals, ; : : ; : - | $205,629 00 576,074 00 





It thus appears that the expenditures from November, 1865, 
to November, 1866, for buildings, machinery and appurte- 
nances, were nearly three times as large as the expenditures for 
the same purposes from November 1, 1866, to January 1, 1868. 

Nobody will pretend that the expenditures for the former of 
these periods were not proper; every building, every piece of 
machinery, has been since used by Mr. Crocker. There is no 
pretence that any expenditure was made not absolutely neces- 
sary to supply new machinery and buildings as they were needed, 
or to keep the old in repair ; and therefore the inference is a fair 
one, that Mr. Crocker has reduced the expenditures on build- 
ings and machinery to their minimum, and applied every 
available dollar to pushing the excavation. 

But my purpose in copying these figures was to show that 
there has no unusual proportion of the expenditures of last 
year gone into buildings and machinery, and, therefore, that 
the cost of excavation last year furnishes too favorable a basis 
for estimating future cost. I think any fair-minded man will 


19 


say that the cost hereafter will be greater, rather than less, 
than it was last year, on account of this policy of Mr. Crocker 
to get all possible work out of the buildings and machinery at 
the least temporary expenditure. 

But this is not all. In the expenditures of last year no 
charge is made of the value of buildings and machinery burned 
at Central Shaft. This sad affair, which involved the destruc- 
tion of two hundréd thousand dollars’ worth of property, the 
suspension of the work on the shaft for an indefinite period, 
and the death of thirteen men, is dismissed by Mr. Crocker 
(Report, p. 10) in two lines, referring us “ for detailed account 
to Mr. Peet’s report herewith.’’ We find no report from Mr. 
Peet, but an anonymous paragraph in the Appendix (p. 74) 
informs us that “ the fire destroyed the shaft building, machine 
shop, blacksmith: shop, office, saw-mill, wood-shed, together 
with a large amount of material and machinery, including 
about five hundred cords of wood and thirty-five thousand feet 
of lumber, making a total loss of at least $40,000.” Mr. 
Latrobe (Report, p. 88) refers to it as the disastrous fire which 
destroyed the buildings and machinery, &c., &c. I assume 
then that all the buildings and machinery were destroyed, 
excepting, of course, that parts of the machinery which are 
not combustible will be worth something. The report says, 
“The total loss was at least $40,000.” There is a great deal 
of virtue in that “at least.” 

The cost of buildings and machinery at the Central Shaft is 
stated in the last report, (p. 28,) to have béén, up to January 
1, 1868, as follows :— 


Berdings ems 2nd Me Senagiios Qh ew) gigi gROT gO 
Machinery, : : : : : : oh PORTS E OO 





Total cost, . ‘ ; ‘ ; ‘ . $738,117 00 


Add to this the value of the wood, lumber and other mate- 
rial destroyed, and I think it will be agreed that the writer was 
safe in stating the total loss to have been at least $40,000. 
This loss, nearer $80,000 than $40,000, is fairly to be added to 
last year’s expenditures, when we use those expenditures as 
the basis of an estimate of future cost. 


20 


If any honest man is inclined to believe that the expendi- 
tures for machinery, &c., will be less hereafter than heretofore, 
let him read carefully the reports of Col. Crocker and of Mr. 
Latrobe, and note the expenditures there foreshadowed. The 
new flume, new turbine wheels, steam-engines, to take the 
place of water-power when the water fails from drought in 
summer and anchor-ice in winter ; machine drills—Mr. Latrobe, 
(p. 56,) suggests that there ought to be three times as many on 
hand as there now are at the tunnel ; pumps—the doctors dis- 
agree on this matter. 3 
* Whichever system is adopted—Mr. Latrobe’s, who compre- 
hends the magnitude of the enterprise, and who would adopt a 
system Which shall be most effective and most economical in 
the long run; or Mr. Crocker’s, whose system is one of tempo- 
rary expediency, running for luck, aiming to show great imme- 
diate apparent results, believing that every additional appropri- 
ation made by the State increases the probability that she will 
keep on—whichever system is adopted, everybody knows that 
the cost of maintaining, repairing and replacing machinery, 
worked as all machinery performing such service must be, is 
very great; and however Mr. Crocker may strive to present 
only the bright side, the fact is, that hereafter the legitimate 
annual expense for machinery will be greater than the average 
for the last five years, (omitting the Deerfield dam as strictly 
exceptional.) 

But even this calculation, with its frightful result, is made 
upon a basis too “favorable to be applied to future operations. 
About one-third of the excavation last year was done by Dull, 
Gowan & Co., under contract. Of the whole 25,808 cubic 
yards, Dull, Gowan & Co. removed 2,944 cubic yards of heading 
and 4,391 yards of enlargement,—total, 7,335 yards,—for 
which, under their contract, they were paid $53,110, averaging 
$7.24 per cubic yard, while the work done under Mr. Crocker 
cost $29.70 per cubic yard. 

» Deducting the amount paid them from the total axpoudiiies 
of the 14 months, $603,666—$54,110—$550,556, which is the 
amount it cost the State to excavate 18,473 Babi yards. The 
question of the cost of completing the tunnel on this basis 
would be answered by the solution of the following problem: 

If 18,478 yards cost $550, 556, 2 will 412,206 yards 


21 


(remaining undone January 1, 1868,) cost? Answer, 
$12,285,000, without interest ! 

Of course the work done by Dull, Gowan & Co. is fairly 
chargeable with its proportion of contingent expenses borne by 
the State, and this would increase the cost of that portion of 
the year’s work, and diminish proportionately the cost of the 
portion done by Mr. Crocker, and thus bring the cost of com- 
pleting the work, on the basis of work done by Mr. Crocker 
last year, a ttiat below this sum. 

In another respect, certainly, the cost of the Hage work of 
last year, gives too favorable a basis for future calculations. 
Over one-third of the work of the year was done at prices below 
cost,—so much below as to break down the contractors. It 
would be clearly unfair to claim that the work hereafter can be 
_ done as low as it was done last year, when over one-third of 
last year’s work was done below cost, under a contract made 
with able, energetic men, who struggled desperately to make 
their ends meet, and failed. And yet Mr.’Crocker is using the 
result of the labors of men who worked for the State to their 
own loss, to prove that hereafter he can carry on this work to 
an early completion, while his own work cost the State at least 
three times as much'per cubic yard as that done by the very 
men whose work at ruinous prices he makes the foundation of 
his claim to triumphal achievements in the future. 

Of course it is unfair to compare Dall, Gowan & Co.’s work 
with a portion of that done by Mr. Crocker, as some portion— 
the west approach, for instance—was much more costly ; and 
for this reason it will not do for Mr. Crocker to claim that he 
can complete the tunnel at the price per yard paid to Dull, 


" Gowan & Co. 


Hitherto, | have calculated only the cost of completing the 
tunnel from January 1,1868. My aim has been to confine 
attention to the single question, Is the tunnel worth finishing 
to-day? Is it better to lose what we have expended, or to 
expend ten or fifteen millions more, and in the end lose the 
whole ? 

. But this record of folly would be incomplete if we otis the 
entire cost to the State of this enterprise from the beginning. 
The first report of the Commissioners, (p. 23,) gives the net 
amount, prineipal and interest, of the advances, by the State 


22 


up to January 1, 1863, as $968,862. The sums expended from 
that time to January 1, 1868, were as follows :— 


In 1863, (one-half of two years, $415,483,) . $207,742 00 
1864, : : . : 207,742 00 
1865, . : ; : ; ; F . ATT,142 00 
ASO 05 § , é i , ; 4 . 590,904 00 
AS EST > , P 5 ‘ ‘ . 975,514 00 








$2,459,044 00 


The interest on the advances from January 1, 1863, and on 
the expenditures from their dates respectively to the time we 
have estimated for the completion of the tunnel, January 1, 
1879, amounts to $3,516,000. 

We have then the following as the 


Tora, Cost to THE STATE oF RoAD AND TUNNEL FROM THE © 
BEGINNING TO ITS COMPLETION. 


Amount of advances to 1868, » : : : $908,862 00 

of expenditures from 1863 t0 1868, . 2,459,044 00 

Interest on above, to January 1,1879, ., . 3,516,000 00 
Cost of completing, from January 1, 1868, 

(ante,.ps 16.) ns ae ee ae ees 


Ultimate cost to the State, é ; . $21,520,286 00 


And this estimates for a single track only. Another track 
will add, for construction and iron, nearly a million more. 

This is the entertainment to which we are now invited by the 
men who originally humbly asked the State for the privilege of 
*‘ building their own road with their own money.” 

I am aware that the figures representing the ultimate cost of 
this work are startling compared with the confident assertion 
of the tunnelites; they seem too extravagant for credit. But I 
challenge the most captious critic to detect a flaw either in the 
premises or the result. I have shown that all the predictions 
of the friends of the work have been falsified, their estimates of 
cost have been exceeded five to tenfold; that the actual expen- 
ditures have uniformly exceeded the most careful estimates of 
engineers, fair-minded and scientific experts, fifty, a hundred, 


~« 23 


two hundred per cent. Ihave taken the past as the only relia- 
ble basis, and the last year as the most favorable year. I have 
shown why the result of last year’s operations was more favor- 
able than can reasonably be expected hereafter, for three 
reasons :—I1st, Because over one-third of the work was done for 
less than cost; 2d, because under Mr. Crocker’s makeshift 
policy, the depreciation of machinery has not been provided 
for; 8d, because, inevitably, as the tunnel progresses into the 
mountain, the cost, from increase of distance, water, and other 
hidden difficulties, must inerease. I have, however, added 
nothing to the cost hereafter on these accounts, but have calcu- 
‘lated it on the basis of last year’s work, and there fs the result ; 
and I defy criticism. Clamor, glamour, hallucinations, will no 
longer avail. Let the friends of the tunnel point out the mis- 
take in these figures, or let them honestly state that they ask 
‘an appropriation this year, for the prosecution of a work which 
must cost the people of this State from this time forward, prin- 
cipal and interest, from twelve to twenty millions of dollars. 

. We come now to an important element of cost in this work: , 


How LONG WILL IT TAKE TO FINISH THE TUNNEL ? 


Here again, we must discard all predictions. Twenty years 
ago it was to be finished in three to five years. Mr. Brooks 
estimated from seven and one-half to eight years. Five years 
have gone, and thirteen and one-third per cent. of the whole 
has been done. Mr. Latrobe calculated last year that it could 
be “ finished in eight and one-half years from January 1, 1867.” 
Well, we have since then the result of fourteen months of 
active work, driven as it never was driven before, viz.: during 
these fourteen months, one-seventeenth, or 5,9; per cent. of the 
work undone Nov. 1, 1866, has been done; which would give 
for one year’s work at the same rate, a trifle over five per cent. 
of the whole. These calculations show how utterly unreliable 
any estimates are as to time, as well as to cost. 

Taking, then, last year’s work as the basis of calculation 
for the future, we arrive at the following result. On the first 
of January, 1868, there were 412,306 cubic yards of rock to 
be éxcavated. In fourteen months, they had removed 25,808 
yards, which would give for twelve months 22,110 yards. If it 
took one year to remove 22,110 yards, how long would it take 


24 , 


to remove 412,306 yards? Answer, two hundred and twenty- 
four months, or eighteen and two-thirds years. Now, the 
victims of tunnel on the brain may scout at these figures; but 
the premises are undeniably correct, and the logic is irresistible. 

But assuming as we did in calculating the cost, that, by 
working two additional faces at the Central Shaft, and increas- 
ing the force upon the enlargement, they double the progress, 
Gt will be. three years before the Central Shaft reaches grade, 
even at the rate of progress of last year,) this will carry them 
through in twelve or thirteen years; and this, upon their own 
premises, with their own results, is the shortest possible time 
for the compfetion of this new avenue for the wealth of the 
West to Massachusetts—this is the result of the method of the 
Railway King to meet the immediate exigency for the commer- 
cial necessities of Boston ! 

We come now to the most important question, perhaps, of all: » 


WHAT WILL THE TUNNEL BE WortTH ? 


T admit that if it can be shown conclusively or even reason-. 
ably that this road will be worth all it costs, all my figures 
about cost are wasted. If it were clearly shown that as an 
investment the tunnel would pay, the State might have some 
justification for undertaking it. Or, if the opening of this 
route would develop the resources of this State, or if it reached 
new fields of wealth or traffic in other States, and thus brought 
new business to Massachusetts, I agree that these advantages 
might be of such magnitude as to render its construction by 
the State comparatively unobjectionable. Can either of these 
propositions be maintained ? 


WILL THE TUNNEL PAY AS AN INVESTMENT ? 


The question is answered before it is asked. If the road to 
the Hudson River through the tunnel should ever be opened, it 
must compete, as an entire line, for through freight, which, its 
friends admit, must be its main reliance, with the Boston and 
Albany road and other lines bringing Western traffic to Boston, 
and of course cannot charge for through freight, to or from 
Troy, higher rates than the other roads charge for sinfilar 
traffic. 


25 


The Boston and Albany road will have cost, with double track, 
- $17,500,000, or nearly $90,000 per mile; and considering it 
solely as a matter of dollars and cents, the managers graduate 
their tariff for freight and passengers with reference to fair div- 
idends on that sum, and no road can compete successfully with 
that road if they charge higher rates. Of course, then, unless 
it can be shown that the traffic will.be larger on the tunnel 
route than on the Boston and Albany, the tariff must be 
substantially the same on each line. 

In arranging the division of receipts between the different 
roads composing the tunnel line, each road must receive its 
proportion according ‘to tts length, and not according to tts costé. 
The connecting roads may now, for a purpose, make professions 
of a willingness to allow the Troy and Greenfield road more 
than its proportional share of the income; but this will last 
only till the State is in so deep that she must go through. In 
the end this line will be managed just as all similar railroad 
lines in the world are managed—each road will receive its share 
of income in proportion to its length, and no more. 

It is fair to assume that the tunnel line, if finished through, 
will cost, (not including the tunnel,) about the same as the 
Boston and Albany road, $90,000 per mile. This is about the 
average of well-equipped double-track roads in Massachusetts. 
In the division of receipts with connecting roads, the Troy and 
Greenfield road would be entitled to ;47, of the income of the 
entire line, and its whole income could pay a dividend only on 
the fair cost of its road as compared with other roads—that 
is, to a dividend on $3,800,000. All that the tunnel costs, 
over this amount, on this theory, will be dead loss. 

I need not say that this calculation assumes half a dozen 
favorable elements which do not and never will exist in this 
case. It assumes that the local traffic on this forty-two and a 
half miles will be the same as on the rest of the line and on 
competing roads; it assumes that at the start the through 
traffic will be the same on this line as on the Boston and 
Albany ; it assumes that, with a half a dozen lines competing 
_ for Western traffic, a link in this line, with an entirely insig- 
nificant local traffic, can derive a remunerating income from 


through traffic alone. 
4 


26 


But I waste time in showing what even its friends admit, that 
the tunnel can never pay as an investment, and that every dol- 
lar put into it by the State will be lost. But the opening of 
another avenue to the West! The pouring of the products of 
Western prairie and forest into Boston, making her the com- 
mercial metropolis of the continent! Let us look at this 
soberly. We have been humbugged long enough. 

The simple question is, Is there any exigency for another 
railroad to connect the New York Central Railroad with Boston ? 


THe CoMPARATIVE LENGTH OF THE ROUTES. 


It seems to have been taken for granted that there is a large 
saving in distance by the Tunnel route, over the Western. As 
a specimen of these disingenuous—I will not say dishonest— 
attempts to mystify the public on this point, look at a table of 
distances given by Hon. Alvah Crocker, in a speech in the 
Senate in 1862. ‘True, he states that itis ‘a table of distances 
from Troy; but the table is got up to show the advantage of 
the tunnel route over the Western, and the design is to give 
the impression that it is a fair statement of the relative merits 
of the two routes in this respect. Otherwise, the table has no 
meaning. Thus he gives the distance ‘‘ to Boston, via Western 
Railroad, 208 miles; via Troy and Greenfield, 189 miles.” 
Most people would understand this to mean that Boston is 
nineteen miles nearer to the West by the tunnel route than by 
the Western. The rest of this table is equally deceptive, or 
more so. 

Now, the competing point is Schenectady. All the through 
traffic for both these routes comes to that point. Thence it is 
brought either by the New York Central road to Albany, for . 
the Western road, or to Troy, for the tunnel route. The dis- 
tances from Schenectady to Boston are, 


From Boston to Schenectady, by Tunnel line, . 212 miles. 
From Boston to Schenectady, by Western line, . 217 miles. 


The tunnel line is five miles shorter ; but this difference, as a 
matter of time, would be nearly offset by the reduced speed 
at which trains would be obliged to run through the tunnel ; 

more than offset so far as passenger trains are concerned. . 


27 


WILL THE TUNNEL ROUTE OPEN A NEw TRAFFIC ? 


Will it tap the West at a different point from existing routes ? 
If it established a connection with a new line of railroad, or 
with the traffic which reaches the seaboard by way of Lake 
Ontario, it would be a great point in its favor. But confess- 
edly, it does nothing of the kind. It simply goes to Schenec- 
tady, and then asks the New York Central road for a share in 
the traffic which otherwise would come through Albany to 
Boston. Clearly, then, the tunnel can make no pretensions 
that it will bring an additional ton of Western freight to Boston, . 
provided the Western road has capabilities for bringing all that 
offers. ° 

In dealing with this matter, we are to consider only the 
question whether the Western road is capable of bringing east- 

ward, from Albany, all the traffic that seeks Boston. 

‘ [am not considering what the Western Railroad has done . 
. with a ferry at Albany, with forty miles of single track, with 
its present equipment and under ils present management; but 
what it is capable of doing with a bridge over the Hudson, 
with a double track all the way, and under a management fully 
‘alive to the duty of making available the highest resources of 
modern railroad science and of meeting the commercial exi- 
gencies of the day. 

With a double track, and with an adequate equipment, there 
is hardly a limit to the capabilities of a railroad. Thus the 
Pennsylvania Railroad is to-day taking freight trains of two 
hundred and forty tons each over its road, with a grade of 95 
feet to the mile for fifteen miles ; whereas, the maximum grade 
on the Western road eastward is 754 feet to the mile for seven 
miles. This load of 240 tons is the gross weight of cars and 
freight, exclusive of engine and tender. Freight cars, well 
filled as through cars always are, constitute something less than 
fifty per cent. of the gross weight of the train. This will give 
something over fifty per cent. as the proportion of paying 
freight. Calling the net freight as fifty per cent. of the whole 
load, and we have 120 tons of paying freight to each train. 
On a double track road, with double the number of passenger 
trains now run by the Western road, freight trains can be run 
every twenty minutes and keep out of the way of passenger 
trains. We will estimate for a freight train each half hour. 


28 


This will give 240 tons of freight per hour, 5,760 tons per day, 
and 1,797,120 tons in the year of 812 working days. This is 
eleven times the amount of freight (162,638 tons,) brought 
eastward by the Western road last year. 

But this calculation assumes that freight engines are used of 
the same size, or but 4 trifle larger than those now used on ‘the 
Western road; whereas, engines are now built, specially 
adapted to heavy traffic, which will carry nearly double- the 
load above stated. The introduction of them would increase 
_ the capacity of the Western road to over three millions of tons 
eastward annually. Practically, there is hardly a limit to the 
freighting capabilities of a double track road with adequate 
equipment. 

But cavillers may say, ‘‘ These are estimates; give us results 
actually accomplished.” They are estimates; but their cor- 
_rectness cannot be disputed. However, here are facts. The 
New York Central road, with a local traffic probably three 
times as. large as that of the Western Railroad, brought to 
Albany in 1866, 600,000 tons of through freight. What hin- 
ders the Western road, with double track and fully equipped, 
bringing the same amount of freight to Boston? The Pennsyl- . 
vania Railroad, crossing the Alleghanies with heavy grades, 
carried about 2,600,000 tons of freight eastward, and the 
capacity of that line, in the estimation of the directors, was 
6,000,000 of tons! These are facts; and what this road can 
do, the Western can do. 

But the old bugbear of the high grade on the Western road. 
Of course, no one denies that the tunnel line has this advan- 
tage; that its maximum grade going east is somewhat less 
than that of the Western. But this is only a question of 
increased cost of freight. With auxiliary power used on the 
five miles of maximum grade near Pittsfield, this disadvantage 
would be entirely overcome. With this overcome, the Western 
line is exactly equal as to grades, (in curves it has the advan- 
tage,) to the tunnel line. What will it cost to put these two 
roads on a par in this respect ? | , 

It reduces itself simply to the cost of auxiliary power to 
haul the freight up the five miles of maximum grade. 
Throughout the rest of its entire line, the Western road is in 


29 


every respect equal, and, as to curves, superior to the tunnel 
line. Indeed, the commissioners in their first report admit 
that the engineering characteristics of the two lines are prac- 
tically equal. They say, (p. 67,) “ With all the improvements 
likely to be made in the line through the Deerfield Valley, 
there will probably remain more. curvature, strong enough to 
be embarrassing to quick trains, on this than on the Western 
route, perhaps enough to equal the disadvantage of their 
heavier grades, which, for passenger service, are not a very 
serious obstacle.” Mr. Laurie says, (p. 208,) “The great 
amount of curvature of small radius on the T. & G. Railroad . 
would more than offset the shorter distance by that line, and I 
have no doubt that the Western road can be run over in the 
same time and with greater safety than the tunnel route.” 
What, then, will be the 


ANNUAL Cost OF AUXILIARY POWER 


for these five miles ? 
I submitted this problem to a friend who is an accomplished 
engineer, who replied as follows :— 


“The problem given Wy you, if I understand it aright, was to deter- 
mine the cost of an assistant engine on five miles of 75 feet grade, and 
the number of tons that could be passed, allowing thirty minutes between 
trains. The cost of a first-class engine, with engineer, fireman, fuel and 
repairs, was formerly covered by about $20 per day. Owing to the 
large increase in all expenses, we will call it $40. Cost per day of 
engines, $200. The capacity would not be less than 1,500,000 tons. 

“The cost of the assistant engines would be $200 3800—$60,000, 
allowing for interest on cost of reserve engines, extra wear of track, &c., 
$20,000 ; total, $80,000, to cover all contingencies. 


This estimate, it will be observed, gives $80,000 as the extra 
cost for auxiliary power for 1,500,000 tons; that is, it will cost 
to bring 1,500,000 tons of freight to Boston by way of 
Albany $80,000 more than it will to bring the same amount 
of freight to Boston by way of Tfoy—nearly ten times the 
largest amount of through freight ever brought in one year 
from Albany to Boston. And this constitutes the whole of 
the exigency for building another railroad to connect with 


380 


the New: York Central Railroad. Not another through pas- 
senger will be brought to Boston nor a cent cheaper; not 
-another ton of through freight will be brought to Boston ; but 
a traffic ten times larger than the highest yet known can be 
brought to Boston for $80,000 per year—which is the interest 
of $1,333,338. To save this sum of $80,000 per year, the State 
is asked to build another road, which will cost in the end an 
amount, the annual interest of which will be over a million of 
dollars! The people of this State are to be taxed over a million 
dollars yearly to save $80,000 yearly ! 

The New York Central Railroad carried last year, in both 
directions, through and local, 1,600,000 tons of freight—all 
told. I have not the statement of the proportions of through 
and local freight; about one-quarter of the whole has hereto- 
fore been about the proportion of eastward through freight. 
This would give about 400,000 tons of eastward through freight 
on the Central road last year. The Western road could have 
brought the whole of this to Boston for an additional cost of 
$25,000. Does this constitute an exigency for building the 
tunnel,—to bring a fraction of this freight to Boston ? 

To illustrate the absurdity of this claim of the friends of the 
tunnel, that this road will bring new traffic to Boston, I ask 
attention to a few facts. 

Flour, wheat, corn and other products of the West are being 
delivered via Ogdensburg and Lowell Railroads,.alongside of 
vessels in deep water in Boston Harbor, from Chicago and 
other Western shipping points, for $6 per ton, or sixty cents a 
barrel for flour ; while it costs $11.66 per ton, or 974 cents per 
barrel to get grain and flour from the same places to Albany or 
_ Troy—that is, to the point where the tunnel road is to seek its 
business. 

By the same route, merchandise from Boston is being deliv- 
ered at Chicago and other shipping ports West for less than $10 
per ton; while from Albany to the same points it costs more 
than $30 per ton, (the exact figures being $1.49 per hundred 
pounds from Boston to Chicago, or $31.84 per ton.) These 
two statements prove th® absurdity of expecting to bring to 
Boston for export any considerable amount of freight by way 
of Albany. 


dl 


During a large part of the season more freight is sent from 
Boston to the West than is offered or can be obtained from the 
West for Boston, and the railroads are much of the time 
obliged to haul empty cars East, to be loaded at Boston for the 
West. If there is not now freight enough coming East to fill 
the cars on existing lines, how stupid the folly of the State 
building another road to bring Western traffic to Boston. 

The Boston and Albany Railroad, which seeks its business at 
the same point where the tunnel road, if ever completed, will 
terminate, has not now and cannot find business for more than 
one-tenth of its capacity ; and it can, of course, bring to Boston 
all the freight that the connecting roads beyond can bring to it. 

All freight coming down the Erie Canal, and intended for 
export, is towed down the Hudson River to New York for less 
than the cost of simply loading it on board the cars at Albany. 
Of course, no canal-borne freight for export will come to Boston 
over the tunnel line. Indeed, none comes now over the Boston 
& Albany. Hence the tunnel line can only divide the traffic 


which comes over the New York Central road. 


The report of the Bureau of the Board of Statistics shows 
that the whole of the surplus product of the country, from Cal- 
ifornia to Maine, which could, under the most favorable circum- 
stances, be used for export, does not exceed fifteen hundred ° 
thousand tons, (1,500,000,) and this amount of freight, if. dis- 
tributed over the various railroads leading to tide-water, would 
not pay even their running expenses. 

The increase of population is much more rapid than the 
increase of production. There is therefore each year less 
freight offering for export. 

It is very sad, very humiliating, that while Maine is Tanah 
one hand Bicieanl to grasp the rich traffic of the Provinces, 
and the other Westward, projecting and perfecting feasible 
lines to Western traffic, Massachusetts is allowing her child to 
outstrip her, while she squanders millions in constructing a road 
which will be utterly worthless as an avenue of Western traffic. 

I have tried to show the utter folly of building a railroad 
solely for the purpose of competing at Schenectady for a traffic, 
every particle of which will come to Boston if the tunnel is 
never built. But a new hallucination was conjured up last 
Winter, Viz. : 


32 


THe ATLANTIC AND ONTARIO LINE. 


Mr. Edward Crane stands godfather to this bantling and 
advocates it with all his usual enthusiasm. Mr. Crane sees 
very clearly that the idea of building the tunnel to bring Wes- 
tern traffic to Boston is sheer folly; for he says, “ When you 
strike the Hudson where barges or steamboats will float, and 
tugs take boats to New York, there is a cheaper transit to tide- 
water, and you may build all the Hoosac Tunnels you please, 
and your money will be where you put it, bearing no interest.” 
(Call you that backing your friends?) What then? He goes 
on: ‘The point of commercial competion is not at Newburg, 
not at Albany, not at Troy, but on Lake Ontario at the point 
nearest the seaboard. A line of three hundred and sixty miles 
from Boston, via Hoosac Mountain, Hagle Bridge, Saratoga, to 
the best port on Ontario, shows the point of commercial com- 
petition for all time.” | 

Now, in the first place, after the road is built from Saratoga 
to Lake Ontario, what is to prevent the traffic going from Sara-— 
toga twenty odd miles by rail to Albany, and then one hundred. 
and fifty miles by water to New York, which he admits is 
‘¢cheaper than by any other method,” instead of going from 
Saratoga by rail two hundred and twenty odd miles through 
the tunnel to Boston ? | 

Again, the traffic for this road is to come through the Wel- 
land Canal and over Lake Ontario, both of which are closed by 
ice six months in the year! 

Again, who is to build the road from Saratoga to Oswego ? 
Mr. Crane knows full well that New York will not invest a dol- 
lar inga road, the purpose of which is to bring Western trade to 
Boston. He knows, too, as everybody knows, that Massa¢hu- 
setts capitalists who have refused to aid the tunnel will not 
invest fifteen or twenty millions of dollars in a similar enter- 
prise outside of the State. 

Let us look at this scheme for a moment, soberly if we can. 
I don’t know what Mr. Crane means by a railroad from Sara- 
toga to Oswego. The line for such a road must run sonth of 
the mountainous region which almost touches the Central Rail- 
road thirty miles west of Albany and extends to Lake Ontario, 
within a few miles of and parallel to the Central road nearly to 
Oswego. A road from Eagle Bridge over this route is simply 


33 ' 


an absurdity. I conclude he must mean the Saratoga and 
Sackett’s Harbor route. This line runs for a hundred miles, 
more or less, through the “‘ New York Wilderness,” a. region 
almost inaccessible, explored rarely by hardy trappers, with an 
occasional lumberman’s shanty on a lake or river—a country 
which will never be settled until chaos is over-populated. I 
know something about this region and this railroad route. I 
have shot many a deer in its forests, caught many a trout in its 
lakes and rivers, and “ shantied’”’ in the railroad surveyors’ 
cabins; and, freshly as I recollect the tortures I endured from 
musquitoes, black flies and punkies, I am comforted in reflect- 
ing that I did not bring upon myself still greater suffering by 
investing, as I was urged to do, in the Saratoga and Sackett’s 
Harbor Railroad. Fourteen years ago—how much longer I 
know not—it was pushed “ vigorously.” Enthusiastic but not 
very far-seeing capitalists were drawn into it; hundreds of 
thousands, perhaps millions were sunk; millions of acres of 
lands were bought by its friends, a large portion of which has 
reverted to the State for non-payment of taxes; time and 
again it changed hands ; all its projectors lost all they invested, 
and all that came of it was some fifteen or twenty miles of 
worthless railroad from Saratoga towards Sackett’s Harbor. 
I do not believe there is much danger that Massachusetts will 
resuscitate this defunct concern, or that the suggestion of this 
scheme will materially influence the judgment of our legislators 
in deciding Spon the expediency of continuing work on the 
Hoosac Tunnel. ) 
In a late “North American Review,” Mr. Charles Francis 
Adams, Jr., has an interesting paper on “ Boston,” in which he 
discusses this tunnel question with judicial clearness and fair- 
ness. I might take exception to the statement that ‘* the con- 
struction of such a road (from Saratoga to Sackett’s Harbor,) 
would be both feasible and cheap.’ Feasibility is a relative 
term; so, perhaps, is cheapness; but as compared with New 
England railroads, this road could hardly be cheap. The route 
runs for over a hundred miles through the New York Wilder- 
ness, a region literally covered with mountains, lakes and rivers ; 
with no valleys or level lands-that are not covered with water. 
Coming east, there is one continuous grade, forty to fifty miles 


long, some forty or fifty feet to’the mile, through a country of 
a 


’ 4 


the most difficult engineering, and where the construction of 
any railroad, and especially of one fitted for a large traffic, must 
be very expensive. Still, money would build it, and therefore 
it is feasible; and if there were sufficient object, it might in the 
end be eheap. Is there an adequate object? Mr. Adams 
answers this question very conclusively in the following extracts, 
(pp. 075 and 576 :—) 


“To the Bostonian, however, one doubt suggest itself: Would that 
movement be to Boston, or would it be to New York? The eastern 
terminus of the proposed line is Saratoga, and Saratoga is alarmingly 
near the head-waters of the Hudson,—is already connected by railroad 
with Troy. 

“ By whomever built, owned, or managed, the proposed road must be 
no less open to freight moving from Saratoga to New York than from 
Saratoga to Boston. 

“So far as this road is concerned, therefore, Saratoga and Troy must 
be considered as one, and both as placed at the head-waters of the Hud- 
son,—that river so fatal, which always will flow to the sea. This plan, 
therefore, while it is briJliant and deserving of careful consideration, 
while it promises rich returns for the outlay it demands, while to the 
West it is of the first importance, cannot be considered as undoubtedly , 
tending to the commercial development of Boston. It is more likely to 
bridge the peninsula from Ontario to the head-waters of the Hudson 
than from Ontario to tide-water. 

“This is certainly the view taken of this project by enterprising New 
Yorkers. It entered into the discussions of the Detroit Convention in 
1865, and Mr. Littlejohn, there representing New York, said of it: 
‘The nearest point on Lake Ontario to the Hudson River is Sackett’s 
Harbor, and next Oswego. From one or the other of these points, pri- 
vate enterprise will soon construct ¢ double track railway to Troy or 
Albany. A propeller of fifteen hundred tons could leave Chicago and 
reach the lower end of Lake Ontaio in six days. A train could be 
loaded up by an elevator from the vessel and despatched every two 
hours, which would take from 200,000 to 250,000 bushels to the Hudson 
River in every twenty-four hours. The cost of transferring the grain 
from the vessels to the cars would be but a quarter of a cent per bushel, 
and the law of gravitation would carry it into the barge at ‘Troy or 
Albany, and another day would put it on board the ship for Liverpool.’ 
It may well, therefore, be questioned: whether Boston should now turn 
her attention to the construction of new and dubious lines of communi- 
cation. While the lines already constructed are but half finished, and 


do 


not utilized to a tenth part of their capacity, she may find in their instant 
_ development ample field for enterprise and investment of capital. 

“To their consolidation and enlightened management she may well 
direct all her superfluous energies for the next five years. She had best 
fight it out on that line.” 


I think that every fair-minded man will admit that I have 
established these propositions: that the completion of the tun- 
nel from this time will require ten, fifteen, twenty millions— 
nobody knows how much; that nearly .every dollar of this 
money must be raised by taxation; that the largest through 
traffic which can ever be expected for this line, competing as it 
must with half a dozen rival lines, can never give more than 
the ordinary income of forty-four miles of road at the ordinary 
cost, $3,000,000, and thus the cost over that amount will be 
an absolute loss; that there is no. pretence that this road will 
ever bring a dollar’s worth of through traffic to Boston which 
cannot come by existing lines at an insignificant cost, unless 
the State builds a railroad from Troy to Oswego or Sackett’s 
Harbor, at a cost of fifteen or twenty millions; that the traffic 
over such a road, if built, could equally well come to Boston 
over the Boston and Albany road, or would, more probably, go 
to New York; and worse than all, that the connections of the 
State with a work of such magnitude debauches her politics 
and legislation. How, in the face of these facts, could the 
legislature of 1868 sanction the farther prosecution of this 
work ? 

Without a doubt, a large majority of the House was honestly 
opposed to any farther appropriations for the tunnel. This 
conclusively appears from the vote on Mr. Dana’s amendment, 
striking out the appropriation of $600,000, even after the 
extraordinary appliances of lobbying and log-rolling which, for 
five months, had been brought to bear upon members. A brief 
history of the action of the House will throw light upon the 
subject. 

TUNNEL LEGISLATION OF 1868. 


The first bill (House Dac. 339,) reported by Mr. Francis, of 
Lowell, in behalf of a majority of the Committee, provided, in 
section one, for appropriations of $250,000 for the completion 
of the railroad, $600,000 to be applied to the tunnel, and 


36 


$350,000 to the payment of interest. Section two authorized 
the governor and council ‘ to contract with any corporation for . 
the completion of the road and tunnel, and to dispose of the 
interest of the Commonwealth in the same, and in the Southern 
Vermont Railroad, upon such terms as they may deem for the 
best interests of the Commonwealth.” The bill was referred 
to the Finance Committee, and reported back without any 
recommendation. Mr. Richard H. Dana, Jr., offered an amend- 
ment, striking out the appropriation ($600,000,) for the tunnel. 
This was carried by a vote of 114 yeas to 95 nays. (The yeas 
and nays are given in the Appendix.) Immediately after this 
vote, at the same session, fhe following amendment was adopted 
by the same louse, by a vote of 120 yeas to 87 nays :— 


“ Provided, That after the first day of October next, no part of this 
appropriation shall be used in payment for work done in excavating the 
tunnel, unless the same be done under contracts approved by the gov- 
ernor and council; and they are hereby authorized to contract for the 
whole work of constructing the Hoosac Tunnel: provided, that a con- 
tract, [ with satisfactory guarantees, | can be made for the completion of 
the same within a period of seven years and at a cost not exceeding 
five millions of dollars.” ' 


The words in brackets were afterwards inserted. 

This amendment was offered by Mr. Dan Pacxarp, of 
Abington. This was accompanied by two additional sections, 
one providing for issuing scrip for the five millions, the other 
abolishing the board of commissioners after the contract shall 
have been made, and providing for the ee of a super- 
intending engineer. 

This was truly ‘taking the bull by the horns,” and illus- 
trates the audacity of the tunnelites in thus changing front. 
under fire, and facing the House which had just voted down an 
appropriation of $600,000 with a proposition for an appropri- 
ation of five millions ! 

The only plausible explanation of this sudden change is that 
this amendment proposed that the work should be done by 
contract. The time had come for a change of tactics. The 
friends of the tunnel were convinced that the House would 
not make appropriations for a continuance of the work under 


37 ' 


the present management or on the present system. A new . 
dodge must be invented. Always in the past, when the 
results of any particular management or system became devel- 
oped, and sensible men saw that the enterprise was ruinous, 
its friends have suddenly discovered that the management or 
system was bad, and have promised the most flattering results 
from a change of one or both. The last panacea—absolutely 
the forlorn hope of the tunnelites—was the contract system. 
Had opportunity been had to expose the folly of any expecta- 
tion of better results from putting the work under contract, 
that humbug would have been exploded, and the House would 
have adhered to its original purpose. Unfortunately, the beau- 
ties of the contract system had been extolled by Mr. Shute and 
others, and the House was caught in the trap. I shall expose 
this delusion hereafter; meantime I resume the history. . 

Various amendments were proposed, the action upon none of 
which bears materially upon the main issue. The bill passed 
to a third reading by a vote of 111 yeas to 92 nays. (The yeas 
and nays are given in the Appendix.) 

When the bill came up for engrossment, it was perceived 
that there was no security for the fulfilment of the con- 
tract ; that no bidders could be found who could or would give 
‘‘satisfactory guarantees’ to complete the work for five mil- 
lions. The following amendment was therefore proposed by 
the friends of the tunnel :— 


“ And further provided, that in case a contract should be made by the 
governor and council for the completion of the tunnel, there shall be 
withheld from payment under said contract a sum not less than one mil- 
lion dollars, until the final completion of said work and the acceptance 
of the same by the governor and council.” 


This perfectly illusory pretence of security furnished to those 
members who wanted a. pretext for voting for the swindle an 
apology for violating their own honest convictions, or outraging 
the wishes of their constituents. | 

The bill passed to be engrossed by a vote of 105 to 96, and 
to. be enacted by a vote of 115 to 91. (These votes will be 
analyzed in the Appendix.) 

Of the action of the Senate nothing need be said, as a 
majority were known from the start to be incurably affected 


. 38 
with tunnel on the brain. Isimply give in the Appendix the 
yeas aid nays upon one test vote for convenience of reference 
by their constituents. 


SUPPLEMENTAL ACT. 


This, (chapter 850,) like a lady’s postscript, contains the 
most important part of the tunnel legislation. Here is the 
entire Act :— 


[Cuap. 350. | 


An Act supplemental to an Act in further addition to an Aet providing 
for the more speedy completion of. the Troy and Greenfield Railroad 
and Hoosaec Tunnel. 

Be it enacted, &c., as follows: 

Sror. 1. The Hoosac tunnel shall be constructed itl a width suffi- 
cient to permit the construction and use of two railway tracks through 
the same, and a single track shall be properly laid and ready for use 
through the tunnel, and the contract under the act to which this is 
supplementary shall include the construction of the same. 

Sect. 2. The governor and council are hereby authorized to appoint 
such engineers and superintendents of the work on the Hoosac tunnel 
‘as they shall deem expedient and necessary, and fix their compensation. 

Sect. 3. The sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars may be 
expended prior to October first in meeting expenses under contracts 
already made, and paying off existing liabilities and prosecuting the 
work on the tunnel, which sum shall be taken from the appropriation 
heretofore made for the tunnel, and shall constitute a part of the five 
millions of dollars authorized in the act to which this act is Rey 
mentary. 

Sreot. 4. The contract shall provide for payments by instalments as 
the work progresses, in such manner, that not less than twenty per 
-centum of each amount due shall be reserved for a final payment on 
the completion of the same. ; 

Sreot. 5. No more than one million dollars shall be appropriated and 
paid out of the treasury the present year under this act or the act to 
which this is supplementary. 

Srcr. 6. This act shall take effect upon its passage. [ Approved 
June 11, 1868. 


Section one requires only a single track to be laid out of the 
five millions. Whena double track becomes necessary, as it 
will be for a great commercial road, at least another million 
will be required for widening, rails, &e., &e. 


39 


Section two and the section struck out by the Senate, 
authorizing the making of one or more contracts, contained all 
that made the introduction of the supplemental bill necessary. 
Tt will be remembered that the original bill abolishes the 
board of commissioners after the contract shall have been 
made, and provides for placing the whole work in charge of a 
superintending engineer. This was all that efficiency and 
economy required or would allow—one competent superinten- 
dent, with authority to appoint all his assistants and subor- 
dinates, and under the fullest responsibility. for the entire 
management, subject to the approval of the governor and 
council. This system not only secured economy, efficiency 
and responsibility, but, more than all, it removed the whole 
enterprise from the domain of politics, so far, at least, as is 
possible while the State is connected with the work. But 
this is not what the Ring wants. Hence the authority given to 
the governor and council “‘ to appoint such engineers and super- 
intendents as they shall deem expedient and necessary.”” This 
opens the door to the whole horde of plunderers who have 
swarmed around this enterprise, provides for retaining Colonel 
Crocker, Mr. Alfred R. Field, and any number of their lackeys, 
and involves the perpetuation of the irresponsible, intermed- 
dling and shifting policy which curses all public works, and 
has particularly disgraced this. There is a huge cat under 
this harmless looking pile of meal. 

Section three is an admission that $250,000, in addition to 
$250,000 appropriated in the original bill, and the unexpended 
balance of previous appropriations, $600,000 to $800,000 in all, 
will be expended before October Ist. 

Section four is useless, except as an ad captandum repetition 
of the deceptive pretence of security for the fulfilment of the 
contract. 


SEPARATE CONTRACTS PROHIBITED. 


The bill originally reported in the House contained the fol- 
lowing section :— 


“The work of constructing said tunnel may be let in one or more 
contracts, provided that the amount to be paid for constructing all of 
said sections shall not exceed five millions of dollars.” 


40 


Mr. Morton of Boston moved to amend by striking out this 
section. This motion was resisted by the tunnelites with an 
earnestness which showed that they regarded this, as well as 
the section authorizing the governor and council to appoint 
additional superintendents and engineers, as an essential part 
of the bill. The opposition to this section was ptt upon the 
eround that it opened the door wide to evasions and fraud, and 
especially that its adoption would endanger what the majority 
of the House was determined to secure, and that was that the 
contract should secure the completion of the tunnel for five 
millions. After full debate, the motion was carried by a vote 
of 103 to 96. 

In the Senate, the obnoxious section was restored ; and upon 
its return to the House, the amendment was non-concurred in 
by a vote of 102 to 90. The Senate insisted; the bill went to 
a committee of conference, and that committee reported that 
the Senate recede from this amendment, and that the House 
recede from other unimportant amendments; and thus this 
insidious trick was defeated. Will it be believed that, in the 
face of these facts; in the face of the fact that the original bill 
authorizes a contract to be made, uniformly using the singular 
number when referring to said contract; in the face of the fact 
that the House deliberately refused to authorize the making of 
more than one contract,—with the full knowledge of these 
facts,—the commissioners, in their advertisement, invite pro- 
posals, “‘ either in three separate contracts for three different 
sections of the work, or in one contract for the whole;” and 
their *“‘ specifications” are so drawn that the work may be divided 
into three contracts, and, for aught that appears, into an indef- 
inite number of contracts? Yet such is the fact, and the 
fraud is in a line with the unbroken practice from the com- 
mencement of the tunnel. Always its friends have engineered 
their claims through the legislature under false pretences ; and 
always they have construed or tortured each Act to authorize 
just what the legislature never intended to authorize. 

This, however, is the most bare-faced perversion of both the 
letter and spirit of legislation that has yet been attempted, and 
for the obvious reason that they were in a desperate extremity. 
They knew perfectly well that the tunnel could never be 
completed for five millions; they knew perfectly well, that no 


4] 


contract, with ‘‘ satisfactory guarantees,’ could be made for 
completing it for that sum; and hence the Ring was des- 
perately bent upon obtaining from the legislature authority to 
make separate contracts. Defeated in that, and knowing that 
the phraseology of the Acts, illustrated by the action of the 
House in denying this power, could not by any honest rule of 
interpretation be construed into authorizing the division of the 
work, they contemptuously set aside the clear requirements of 
the law, and cut the knot which they could not untie. 

To understand clearly the nature and extent of this attempted 
fraud upon the intentions of the legislature, let us inquire 
carefully, first, what the legislature authorizes thes# commis- 
sioners to do; second, what they propose to do. 


Ist. WHat AUTHORITY DID THE LEGISLATURE GIVE TO THESE 
(COMMISSIONERS IN REGARD To MAKING A CONTRACT ? 


Section first of the original bill first mentions the contract 
in the following proviso :— 


“And provided further, that after the first day of October next, no 
part of this appropriation shall be used in payment for work done in 
excavating the tunnel, unless the same be done under contracts approved 
by the governor and council; and they are hereby authorized to contract 
for the whole work of constructing the Hoosac Tunnel: provided, that 
a contract, with satisfactory guarantees, can be made for the completion 
of the same within a period of seven years, and at a cost not exceeding 
five millions of dollars; and further provided, that in case a contract 
should be made by the governor and council for the completion of the . 
tunnel, there shall be withheld from payment under said contract a sum 
not less than one million dollars until the final completion of said work 
and the acceptance of the same by the governor and council.” 


The first clause refers to “‘ contracts,’—the only use of the 
plural word in either bill. This clause is a dead letter, for, 
after the $600,000 appropriation had been struck out, there 
was no appropriation to which it could apply, the only two 
appropriations being restricted, one to the railroad, and the 
other to interest. The clause cannot be tortured to apply to 
the five million appropriation, for that had not yet been referred 
to; and no legitimate rule of construction will allow it to apply 


to an appropriation subsequently made and for a purpose not 
6 


42 


yet declared. Before Mr. Dana’s Uae fe was adopted, it 
had a meaning ; afterwards, none. 

The only possible construction which will give this clause any 
meaning is that it was meant to prevent interference with 
‘¢ existing contracts’? with Mr. Farren, as stated by the com- 
missioners in their ‘ specifications,’ and is intended to cover 
his contracts and a contract as subsequently described ; “ pro- 
vided that a contract, &c.,’” * ae Ries! Phe that in 
case a contract should be ni) &e. 

Section second authorizes the governor and council to con- 
tract with any person or corporation for the completion or pur- 
chase of*the tunnel; but this has nothing to do with the 
contract for which the five millions was appropriated. 

Section third: ‘* When a contract is made as provided in the 
first section,’ &c., using the same word in the singular, and 

excluding: the application of this word to any contract or 
contracts which the governor and council might make under 
section two. 

The phraseology of the supplemental Act confirms this posi-. 
tion. Section one refers to “ the contract (singular) under the 
Act to which this is supplementary, &c.”’ Section four says: 
‘¢The contract shall provide, &c.”’ 

Now, add to this the fact that the House struck out the sec- 
tion authorizing the work to be ‘ let in one or more contracts,” 
adhering to its purpose plainly declared in the original bill, and 
persistently refusing to modify that purpose; and I ask, who 
could have dreamed that the commissioners would have dared 
to propose to let out this work under three or more contracts ? 


2p. WHAT DO THE COMMISSIONERS PROPOSE ? 


In their advertisement, ‘ the commissioners, &c., invite pro- 
posals, &c., for completing said tunnel, either in separate con- 
tracts for three different sections of the work, or in one contract 
for the whole.” 

The Specifications. 


The work is divided into three sections: I. Last End of the 
Tunnel; Il. Central. Shaft; II. West Shaft and West End 
Workings. The work under each section is divided in six — 
different subdivisions, each of which, for aught that appears, 
may be let out under a separate contract. 


43 


Now there is nothing in the “ specifications” that enables us 
to decide whether the commissioners intend to make a contract 
for each of the three sections, or for each of the eighteen sub- 
divisions. Nor is it material. The letting out of the work 
under more than one contract equally violates the law, whether 
by three contracts or eighteen, and equally opens the door to 
fraud. 

I might criticize the eonunabirs in detail, and drive a 
coach and four through the loop-holes. One general remark 
may be mdade, and that is, that the State takes all the risk of 
extraordinary contingencies. For instance, suppose, as has been 
predicted by competent experts, the increase of water or a 
change of material as the tunnel enters the mountain should 

make arching necessary. This would increase the cost very 
largely. The contractors do not agree to do this, and the extra 
cost falls on the State. 

Again, the arching at the West End is to be done by the M. 
Suppose the contract requires the arch to be three feet thick, 
and afterwards it is found necessary to build it four feet thick. 
The contractor cannot be held to make the additional excava- 
tion required for. the enlargement, or to lay the extra brick, 
and he calls upon the State for allowances on his own terms or 
throws up the contract. This contingency could have been 
avoided if the specifications had required proposals for arching 
per lineal yard. Mr. Farren’s contract is at so much per lineal 
yard, and the State is secure unless the contractor fails, and 
then she has so much work done for her money. But with a 
contract for arching per M, the contractor can stop whenever 
he pleases, and at worst he only forfeits twenty-per cent. on the 
contract price of so many M of bricks laid, not twenty per 
cent. on the whole contract. 

But it seems idle to criticize trifling details in a work of this 
magnitude—childish to quiddle over the spigot when the bung 
is open. The truth is, the issue of a contract depends entirely 
upon the competency and honesty of the parties who make it; 
and when the party of the first part, whose special duty it is to 
protect the interests of the State, begins by violating a law of 
the State, it is a hopeless task to interpose obstacles between 
them and the treasury of the Commonwealth, which they mean 
to rob. Between the contractors, whose interest it is to get the 


44 


largest amount of money for the smallest amount of work, and 
the commissioners, whose determination it is to put the tunnel 
through at whatever cost, may God save the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts. 

What led the commissioners to attempt this gross violation 
of law? The pretence is that they could get no bid for the 
whole work. What if they could.not? Then their occupation 
was gone—that is all—and they knew it; but that was no affair 
of theirs, as agents of the legislature, restricted in their functions 
to limits set by the legislature. The legislature had said, as 
plainly as language could say, “‘ If you can make a contract for 
completing the tunnel within seven years, for $4,750,000, and 
with ‘satisfactory guarantees,’ make it; if not, let it alone. 
Our successors next winter will see what is to be done.”’ 

It is pretended that they can get the work done for less 
money under several contracts than under one. The sufficient 
answer is, that the legislature decided that the work should be 
done in this way or not at all. Upon what meat do these three 
men feed, that they have grown so great as to nullify a plain 
Act of the legislature? No; all these pretexts are shams. The 
real purpose of this audacious fraud is, to secure the application 
of the whole of the appropriation to a part of the work, and 
throw upon the State the burden of completing it. 


The Effect of Separate Contracts. 


The legislature intended to secure this: that, if a contract 
were made, it should be for the completion of the tunnel in 
seven years, for a specified sum. This proposition was made by 
the friends of the tunnel, and the legislature took them at their 
word, ‘* Now show your faith by your works.” If a contractor 
appeared, ready to make a contract upon these terms, with 
‘‘ satisfactory guarantees,’ and a contract should be made on 
this basis and honestly enforced, the work was secured. Kvery- 
body knew—and nobody was more fully convinced of this than 
the men who made the proposition—that no such contract could 
be made. Events have proved this. The advertisement for 
proposals was made public on the 26th of June. It came to be 
fully understood that no proposals would be made, and about 
August Ist the time was extended to September. (Vo public 
notice has been given of this extension. The knowledge of this 


45 


extension was to be confined to the Ring.) Perfectly convinced 
that no contract could be made in accordance with the inten- 
‘tions of the legislature, the managers were forced to evasion. 
Hence the pian of separate contracts. 

Among the methods of evasion, this is an obvious one. Sup- 
pose three contracts are made; two of them can be made on 
terms which will give the contractors large profits—upon such 
terms that they will make money if they receive eighty per cent. 
of the contract price, so that they will be safe if they stop at 
any time. These two contracts may be so made that they will 
absorb three-fourths of the appropriation for one-half. or one- 
fourth of the work. The third contract may be made, agreeing 
to do the balance of the work for the balance of the appropria- 
tion. Nominally, there may appear to be separate contrators ; 
really, there will be but one interest. The work is commenced, 
the three contracts being prosecuted simultaneously. So long 
as the profits on the first two exceed the loss on the third, all is 
well. So soon as this ceases to be the case, the third contract 
stops. It will be entirely easy for men who have acquired such 
skill as these parties, in years of similar trickery, so to arrange 
prices and work under the different contracts as to secure the. 
expenditure of nearly the whole of the appropriation, and yet 
leave the heaviest part of the work to be done. The State 
must then finish or lose all. This always has been and is still 
the purpose of the ring—to get the State in so far that she will 
be compelled to go through. 

But ‘satisfactory guarantees”? are to be required! . It is 
superfluous to argue that the idea of guarantees which would 
be ‘‘ satisfactory,’ in the sense in which the word is understood 
in private transactions, is a transparent delusion. No contractor 
can or will be found who will give any other security than that 
which is given by the twenty per cent. reservation, and this is 
no security at all; for no contractor can or will be found who 
will not make his prices such that eighty per cent. will give 
him a profit, and when he finds that that expectation fails, he 
will stop and the State will have no remedy. 

But even this apparent security under the twenty per cent. 
reservation fails entirely under the plan of separate contracts. 
The intention of the legislature clearly was, that twenty per 
cent. of the whole appropriation should be reserved until the 


46 


— 


completion of the tunnel. The separate contract system 
excludes the possibility of even this security. The specifica- 
tions under the head of “ manner and provisions of payment,’’” 
stipulate: ‘‘ Payments shall be made each month “ * * on 
account of work done during preceding month, * *-+* 
making a deduction of a reserve of twenty per cent., to be 
retained until the completion of this contract, &c., &c.” 

‘¢ And on completion-of the contract and final estimate by 
the engineer, the reserve of twenty per cent. will be paid, &c., 
ACH? ; 

Now ‘this contract”? means this separate contract, not the 
various contracts for completing the work, as no contractor 
would agree to wait for his pay until other contractors had 
finished their work; and the words, the “completion of the 
contract and final estimate by the engineer,” for the same 
reason, apply to the completion of this separate contract. Thus, 
the contractor under two of the contracts supposed, is entitled 
' to a hundred cents on the dollar. 

Indeed, under the construction forced upon the law by the 
commissioners, the work may as well be divided into an indefi- 
nite number of contracts—there is nothing in the specifications 
limiting the number—and the contracts may be so arranged as 
to close every three months, or every month, and each separate 
contractor may draw his entire pay every three months or every 
month. 

There is no end to the loop-holes which may be found under 
this separate contract plan. J will not weary my readers by 
detailing them. The ingenuity which devised the fraudulent 
plan will not fail to discover methods for securing the only 
result aimed at—the tunnel, at whatever cost. 

But, it will be said, this argument assumes incompetency or 
dishonesty on the part of those who are to pass upon the ques- 
tion of ‘satisfactory guarantees.’ It assumes what we all 
know, that the State has been gradually drawn into its present 
relations to this work by just such trickery as this—less 
audacious, less outrageous, I admit. From the start, construc- 
tions which the legislature never dreamed of, have been forced ~ 
upon laws. Promises have been made which were never 
intended to be kept; the most flattering prospects portrayed, 
only to be successively blighted. A compact, unscrupulous, 


AT 


selfish Ring has dominated political conventions and legislative 
canvasses. <A profligate lobby has disgraced the fair fame of 
Massachusetts legislation. The timid have been frightened ; 
the mercenary have been bought; the weak have been hum- 
bugged ; the confiding have been cheated. I assume—at least 
I fear—that what has been will be; especially is suspicion 
justified when the first act of these commissioners is such a 
bare-faced repudiation of the deliberate adjudication of the 
legislature. 

Suppose, when the House was discussing the proposition, to 
authorize separate contracts, a tunnelite had declared,—* It is 
immaterial how the House decides this question. We shall 
construe the Acts to give the commissioners authority to divide 
the work into as many contracts as they please.’ Can any 
man doubt how such a declaration would have been received ? 
Was there a fair-minded man in.the House who would not have 
scouted the suggestion, and added: then, if it is possible to 
make our meaning clearer, let us do it ? 


After the foregoing pages were in print, a letter from Mr. R. 
‘H. Dana, Jr., appeared in the ‘* Springfield Republican.” After 
referring to the passage of the original Act, requirmg one 
contract, Mr. Dana says :— 


“The friends of the tunnel were uneasy about the requirement of a 
single contract, and the reservation of the one million to the end. A 
supplemental bill was brought into the: House by Mr. Towne, of Fitch- 
burg, which contained a section permitting the completion of the road 
by several contracts, not exceeding six, and, in that case, instead of the 
reservation of one million to be paid on the completion of the whole, it 
provided for a reservation of twenty per ccnt. on each contract. On 
this provision of Mr. Towne’s bill there was a well understood and 
earnest debate. In its favor, it was contended that it was for the inter- 
est of the State to be able to make several contracts, by sections; and, 
as the cost was to be $5,000,000, whether there was one contract or 
several, a reservation of twenty per cent. on each contract would 
amount to one million. ‘To this it was answered, among other things, 
that, as each contractor would be entitled to his reserved twenty per 
cent., when his own contract was completed, and no contractor would 
agree to have his full payment depend on the work of other contractors, 
the advantage of a large reservation to secure the final completion 


48 


would be lost ; and that the only safe course was to have this large res- 
eryation to the very end, and to provide for a single contract to which 
this reservation should be attached. The latter view prevailed, and Mr. 
Towne’s proposal was struck out by a vote of 103 to 96. 

“The supplemental bill then went to the Senate, where Mr. Brooks, 
of Franklin, moved to insert Mr. Towne’s section as an amendment. In 
the Senate the two systems were fully discussed—that of one contract, 
with $1,000,000 reserved, and that of several contracts, with twenty per 
cent. reserved on ‘each. The latter prevailed, and the supplemental 
bill was sent to the House with Mr. Towne’s section in it as an amend- 
ment... In the House, Mr. Morton moved to non-concur in this amend- 
ment. The subject was again fully discussed, and the House refused to 
concur, by a vote of:102 to 90. The Senate adhered to its amendment. 
A committee of conference was appointed. This committee reported 
that the Senate give way on Mr. Towne’s section, and that the House 
agree to another amendment of the Senate, increasing an appropriation 
under section three of chapter three hundred and _ fifty, for expenditures 
prior to October 1, from $150,0000 to $250,000. This report was 
accepted by both branches. The result of the whole was, that small 
specific appropriations were made for the payment of interest, and for 
the carrying on of certain work during the summer and autumn, until 
the contract for completing the work could be made, and that the con-— 
tract for the completion of the work was to be a single contract, for not 
more than five millions, in not more than seven years, one million to be 
reserved until the satisfactory completion of the entire work of tunnel 
and road. 

“Of the correctness of the above statement, Iam sure no one will 
suggest a doubt. In the whole session there was nothing more thor- 
oughly understood, more frequently debated and voted upon, than the 
two systems, of one contract with one reservation, and several contracts 
with several reservations, besides being the subject of a difference 
between the two houses, which was settled by the report of a conference 
committee adopted by both branches.” 


Hon. George Walker adds the following :— 


“ After reading the above letter of Mr. Dana, I desire to explain that 
I left Boston to meet an important engagement in New York, on the 
afternoon of the 8th of June, having waited only till the original bill had 
passed through all its stages, and did not return before the final adjourn- 
ment on the 12th. The facts stated by Mr. Dana are therefore new to. 
me; but they confirm in the fullest manner my own. opinion, formed 
during the discussion of the original bill, that the House never did con- 


49 


sent, and could not by any sophistry be persuaded to consent, that the 
single contract which it had authorized should be split up into several 
individual undertakings.” 

I have seen several leading members of the legislature, and 
without exception, every one confirms the above statements. 

But, it will be said, the contract or contracts must be made 
by the governor and council, not by the commissioners; and 
can it be supposed that they will sanction this perversion of the 
law contemplated by the commissioners? I cannot believe it 
possible. In his private capacity not one of those gentlemen 
would be capable of such an outrage; but I know too well how 
easily individual responsibility is shuffled off in that body. I 
have been behind those scenes. I have seen an order of coun- 
cil passed providing for the payment of over $70,000, to one of 
Haupt & Co.’s creditors, every dollar of which the State had 
once paid; and this, too, when Governor Andrew entertained 
the undoubting opinion that not a dollar of the.amount ought 
to be paid by the State, and when he had the absolute power to 
prevent the passage of the order; and yet it was paid, under the 
pressure of appliances and influences whieh always have been 
and still are brought to bear upon the decision of all questions 
relating to the tunnel. 


** Sin has a thousand treacherous arts 
To practice on the mind; 
With flattering lips she tempts the heart, 
But leaves a sting behind.” 


It is rumored that the attorney-general has given an opinion 
that the Act allows separate contracts to be made. This seems 
hardly credible ; still less does it seem possible that the governor 
and council will shield themselves behind such an opinion. 
The attorney-general was born and brought up and practised 
' law for years in Greenfield—in a community where tunnel-on- 
the-brain has long been achronic disease, and where professional 
success and personal comfort depended upon orthodoxy on this 
matter; and without questioning his honesty, it is simply 
impossible that a young man should be free from the bias of 
these surroundings and influences. It would be a gross insult 
to the intelligence and manliness of the ten gentlemen who 
compose the executive department of the government to insinu- 

7 


50 


ate that the opinion of an officer with such antecedents, saying 
nothing of his age and position in the legal profession, could so 
control the judgments of the governor and council, as to lead 
them to violate the manifest intentions of the legislature, and 
this in the face of the grave prohibition in the Bill of Rights, 
that the executive department “shall never exercise the 
legislative powers.” 

But, “‘ the question would be carried to the supreme court 
under an application for an injunction.” Yes, with an attorney- 
general, if the rumor be true, to argue the case, who has already 
given an opinion in favor of the obnoxious construction ! 

I do not question that the governor and council will be gov- 
erned by their own honest convictions of public duty and the 
public interests ; but I remember that these commissioners were 
appointed by the governor and council, and it is not agreeable, 
to say the least, to repudiate the acts of their own agents. If 
this board were like that appointed by the governor and council 
last year upon the Hartford and Erie Railroad matter, we might 
feel less distrust as to their acts. The legislature authorized 
the loan of the scrip of the State for three millions upon cer- 
tain conditions, and provided for the appointment of three com- 
missioners whose duty it should be to see that those conditions 
were complied with, and thus the State should have all the. 
‘satisfactory guarantees” that were possible. The governor 
and council appointed ‘Grorce TyLer BicrLow, Emory WASsz- 
BURN and SAMUEL ASHBURNER; the first ex-chief justice of the 
supreme court of Massachusetts ; the second, ex-governor and 
professor of law in Harvard College; the third, a civil engineer 
of large experience and the highest attainments and of rare 
personal independence. No three gentlemen could have been 
found in the State, of greater, I might safely say of equal, 
fitness, for capacity and character, without prejudice, without 
bias, without fear or favor, to do justice to the corporation, 
to carry out the intentions of the legislature and especially 
to guard the interests of the State. Precisely similar duties 
are imposed on the tunnel commissioners, with this difference: 
that the amounts involved are very much larger. Who are 
set to guard the interests of the State in connection with 
this work? Alvah .Crocker, Tappan Wentworth, Samuel W. 
Bowerman. 1 do not impugn their personal integrity. It is 


D1 


enough to say that every one of them is profoundly impressed 
with the conviction that his whole duty is to put the tunnel 
through at whatever cost to the State. Quis custodiet custodes ? 

Our suspicions of the intentions of the commissioners are 
justified by the 


LOOP-HOLES IN THE SPECIFICATIONS, 


through which an unskilful legal ‘Jehu could drive a coach 
and four. I will specify only one or two. 

No requirements are made as to rate of progress through the 
*‘ demoralized rock,’’—that is, that portion between the east 
end of Farren’s contract and the west shaft. This part of the 
work is referred to under the heading of ‘ work to be done”’ 
in this section, viz.: driving the. heading and enlargement of 
the same between these points; but in fixing the rate of prog- 
ress in this section as the} have done in the other two, no 
mention is made of progress required between these points. 
The only requirement, is—‘‘ The contractor shall employ suit- 
able force, and shall maintain, after December 1, 1869, an 
average rate eastward of monthly progress of tunnel excavated 
to full size, of not less than 100 feet.”” Now, progress “ east- 
ward” here evidently means eastward from east heading of 
west shaft working. It is impossible that the arching can be 
completed by December 1, 1869, for these reasons: FF arren’s 
contract requires him to reach a point 931 feet east from west 
end, on or before June 1, 1869. Of course, the work of tun- 
neling and arching cannot be continued until he reaches that 
point. Between the terminus of his contract and the heading 
from the west shaft westward, there are about 800 feet of 
heading to be excavated, and the whole distance from Farren’s 
contract to west shaft is to be arched—about 1,300 feet. 

Now, the specification states that in June last Farren’ had 
251 feet of his contract to do, and they allow till June 1, 1869, 
for doing it. This is at an average monthly rate of 194 feet. 
Perfectly clearly, then, the requirement of 100 feet monthly 
progress cannot apply to this part of the work. Then, of 
course, this work is not included in the specifications. Nobody 
knows what rate of progress will be required. The matter will 
be left to private negotiations with favored bidders. Honest 
parties who make proposals are under the disadvantage of not 


52 


knowing to what extent bids may be sweetened by subsequent 
negotiations covering this work. 

There is also either a singular blunder or an intentional 
fraud in the requirements of the specifications, as to the 


Time of completing the Tunnel. 


The -Act requires that the tunnel shall be completed in 
seven years. Considering the fact, that at the rate of progress 
last year under Colonel Crocker, which was the best progress 
ever made, and the best Colonel Crocker could make, with 
unlimited means and no unusual interruptions, it would 
require eighteen to nineteen years to complete the tunnel. It 
cannot be supposed that the legislature allowed longer time than 
was necessary. Seven years was declared by the friends of the 
tunnel necessary, and seven years were allowed. ‘The specifica- 
tions require it to be completed fn less than four years from 
October 1, 1868! 

Under the first division—east end of tunnel—the require- 
ments are as follows: 

‘The contractor shall * * * maintain average rates of 
advance on each of the several sections, described as follows: 


ist. On the tunnel enlargement, . . 75 feet per month. 
2d. On the heading enlargement, . onthe eae ‘6 
dd. Extension of full size tunnel, . bw Seah Se ak 6 


“The work of each separate section described shall be com- 
menced at west end of work completed by the State, and thence 
carried with a complete advance westward, reserving always to 
the contractor the privilege of working two or more breasts on 
each one of the sections described, in order to make up the 
aggregate rate of progress required in each.” This language 
admits of but one meaning; and that is, that the monthly 
progress of completed tunnel, commencing from the end of the 
present heading, must be 125 feet from and after October 1, 
and that the heading enlargement and tunnel enlargement. 
must proceed simultaneously at the specified rates. 

At the central shaft division, the shaft is to be sunk to 
grade on or before December 1, 1869, and thenceforth there is 
required ‘‘an average rate of progress of tunnel excavated to 


53 


full size, east and west, of not less than 80 feet in each direction. 
At the west shaft division, the contractor shall maintain, 
after December 1, 1869, an average rate eastward of monthly 
progress, of tunnel excavated to full size, of not less than 100 
feet.” Let us see how beautifully these requirements will bore 
the Hoosac Mountain. Puck’s girdle round the world was 
child’s play. 

The work done—that is, linear progress of headings, adits, 
and gimlet holes—is stated by the commissioners as follows: 


Kast end, . i : é } . - : 5,150 feet. 
West end, east, : i - : : q LAT O08 
ci. west, : : : : ; : Uo Les 
Farren’s contract, . : piphicst 931 ~ 
Between west shaft and I Barre S eon ece ine aie G. 





Wholly or partially done, . ‘ : : : 9,894 feet. 


Subtracting this from the whole length of the tunnel, 24,862 
feet, and there remains 14,968 feet of new tunnel to be exca- 
vated. Suppose the contract or contracts made, the work com- 
mences at the east end October 1, 1868, and advances at the 
rate of 125 feet per month till December 1, 1869,—1,750 feet. 
Deducting this amount from work to be done October 1, 1868, 
(14,968—1,750) and there will be 12,218 feet to be See ys 
after that date. The central shaft will then have reached 
grade, and tunnelling will commence on two faces. At the 
west shaft, the contractor then commences tunnelling, (why 
the work here does not commence at the same time as at east 
end we are at a loss to conjecture.) The monthly progress 
will then be 125 feet at east end; 160 feet (80 feet at each 
face) at central shaft; and 100 fect at west end. That is an 
ageregate monthly progress of 385 feet. 12,218 linear feet to 
be excavated, at the rate of 385 feet per month. Here is the 
equation: 12,218—385=81 months and 21 days. 

That is, the tunnel is to be completed in two years seven 
months and twenty-one days from December 1, 1869, or three 
years nine months and twenty-one days from October 1, 1868! 
How stupid in the legislature to allow seven years, involving 
such an enormous loss of interest, when it can be done in half 
the time. 


o4 


Now it will not be pretended that the requiring of these 
rates of progress was done for economy ; for everybody knows 
that a contract can be made on better terms, both for the con- 
tractor and the State, if reasonable time is allowed, than if 
such simply unattainable rates are required. Hither the com- 
missioners blundered,—and they will hardly claim that they 
neglected to apply the simplest rules of arithmetie to the prob- 
lem,—or these absurd requirements were put forward for an 
ulterior purpose; for subsequent “ truck and dicker.” Is this 
uncharitable ? Then what does it mean ? 

Legal gentlemen, in looking for the evidence of an alleged 
crime, first search for the motive. What motive drove these 
commissioners to this disreputable perversion of clear proyis- 
ions of law? It must have been dire necessity. They knew 
that no honest contract could be made for completing the tun- 
nel in accordance with the requirements of the law; and, as 
their paramount duty is to put the tunnel through, no alter 
tive was left but to violate the law. 


Is an honest Contract possible 


for completing the tunnel, as required by the legislature ¢ 

From the $5,000,000 appropriated, $250,000 may be expended 
prior to October 1, 1868, leaving $4,750,000 for the completion 
of the tunnel under the contract. Let us examine the available 
means at the disposal of the commissioners. 

That portion of the work between the west shaft and Farren’s 
contract is to be treated exceptionally. Its cost is so excessive 
that it will not be fair to estimate it by the cubic yard at the 
same rates as ordinary excavation. 

The only proper basis is the cost of that work under 
Farren’s contract. The commissioners state that 231 feet of 
this contract remained to be done June 26, which he was to do 
in eleven months. He would do three-elevenths of this before 
October 1, or 63 feet, leaving 168 feet to be done after that 
date. There are about 300 feet between the terminus of his 
contract and the west heading of working from west shaft. 
There will be then 468 feet to be excavated and arched before 
reaching the heading. Farren’s price is something over $400 
per linear foot. At $400, these 468 feet will cost $187,200. 
From the west shaft westward to this solid tunnel, there are. 


ay) 


1,037 feet, through which a small adit or heading has been 
driven. This is to be enlarged to full sized tunnel and arched. 
Deducting from Farren’s contract price $50, on account of this 
heading, the enlargement and heading of this 1,037 feet will 
stand at $350 per linear foot. This will amount to $362,950. 
These two sums, amounting to $550,150, will make the cost 
of completing the tunnel to the west shaft. Deducting this 
amount from $4,750,000, we have, in round numbers, $4,200,000 
for completing the rest of the tunnel. 

The cost of pipes and laying the same for the central drain, 
and for power, ventilating, &c., &c., (the excavation for central 
drain will be estimated dition another head,) must also be - 
deducted. 

I infer from the specifications that 4,050 feet of the central 
drain are completed at east end. The whole length of the tun- . 
nel being 24,862 feet, pipes must be provided and laid for the 
balance—(24,862—4,050,) 20,812 feet. Fifteen dollars per foot 
would be a very low figure fb the cost of pipes and laying, as 
the pipes for compressed air, especially, are very expensive. 
This would make the cost ee this item $312,180—say 
$300,000. Deducting this amount from $4,200,000, we have 
remaining $3,900,000. 

Still another deduction is to be made, under the following 
requirement of the specifications :— 


“The Commonwealth shall permit the use by the contractor, without 
charge, for the purposes of the work herein specified, of the dam and 
canal, water wheels, saw mill, machine shop, with its shafting, lathes, 
drills, benches and fixtures, compressors, and other machinery for power 
and ventilation, now set up and in use, with the buildings connected 
therewith, together with the pneumatic drills, air and water pipes, cross- 
ties, cars and drill carriages, which are now in use for the prosecution of 
the work; stipulating that he shall keep all the same, at all times, in a 
complete state of repair and efficiency.” 


Now, the cost to the State of these items, to January 1, 1868, 
as given in the commssioners’ last report, has been— 
Dam, wheelpits, &c., &., . - : : . $247,000 00 
Buildings, : ; : : : , ; 96,000 00 
Machinery, ; 2 ; : : : . 840,000 00 


otal cd iiists aot leMaBeasus | AP. bd! BE831000100 





56 ; 

The contractor is to pay nothing for the use of this property, 
only to keep it “in a complete state of repair and efficiency.” 
(I hardly think Colonel Crocker would let his paper mills on 
such terms.) The repairs on the dam, canal and permanent 
works ought to be very light. Deduct say $183,000 on that 
account, and there remains $500,000 worth of buildings, 
machinery, &c., subject to serious wear and tear. Ten per 
cent. per annum would be a low price for keeping buildings 
and machinery of this description, and doing such work, ‘‘in a 
complete state of repair and efficiency.”” This would amount 
to $50,000 annually, and for seven years to $350,000. This 
-sum deducted from $3,900,000 leaves $3,550,000. 

It is true that these last two items are not to be deducted 
from the amount of the appropriation before it is paid to the 
contractor ; but the cost under these items is to be borne by 
the contractor, and goes, to the extent of that cost, to reduce 
the amount he will receive under the contract for excavation. 

There is still another heavy item to be deducted, and that is 
the cost (as required in the specifications,) of “ laying one 
track complete, including the furnishing iron rails, chairs, 
spikes and crossties,” through the whole length of the tunnel 
and to North Adams. The cost will be, at low figures, $18,000 
per mile—say $120,000. Deducting this from $3,550,000 leaves 
$3,480,000. 

But the central shaft is also to be treated exceptionally. 
Dull & Co.’s contract price was $25 per cubic yard for work on 
- central shaft—nearly three times their price for ordinary exca- 
vation—and they broke down at that. But we will figure it at 
that price. 

The shaft is to be sunk 447 feet, at 113 cubic yard per foot 
of depth; the excavation here will amount to 5,250 cubic yards. , 
At $25 per cubic yard, this will cost $181,250. Deducting this 
from $3,480,000 leaves, in round numbers, $3,300,000. 

Still another deduction is to be made for excavating 
‘‘Haupt’s tunnel,” referred to in the foot note on page 5. 
This is about 500 feet long, and must be enlarged and arched 
or made an open cut. The difference in the cost of the two 
methods would not be material. Estimating it one-fourth the 
cost of similar work under Farren’s contract, (it would 
undoubtedly cost at least half as much,) that is $100 per 


D7 


linear foot, this will cost $50,000. Deducting this from 
$3,300,000, we have $3,250,000 as the available means for 
excavating the entire tunnel, except the portion for which esti- 
mates have been made. How much work is to be done with 
this money ? 


Amount of Excavation under the Contract. 


The specifications state the total amount of excavations from 
east end to central shaft, (not including central drain,) and 
the amount of excavation for the enlargement from west shaft 
to the end of the heading. To these are to be added the exca- 
vation for entire tunnel from central shaft to west end heading. 
The distance is 10,318 feet, all new tunnel. The commissioners 
say that the excavation of 5,300 linear feet of tunnel amounts 
to 86,000 cubic yards. This gives 162 cubic yards per linear 
foot. Hither they have made a mistake or they have reduced 
the size of tunnel from that heretofore adopted. However, I 
will take their figures. The excavation of 10,318 feet would 
amount to 86,920 cubic yards. The specifications make no 
statement of size of central drain. It must be at least two feet 
by four. The length will be (as before figured,) 20,812 feet. 
Here is the equation: 20,812 x 2x 4+ 27= 6,166 cubic yards 
of excavation for central drain. We have then amount of 
excavation as follows :— 


Tunnel enlargement, east end,. : . 0,100 cubic yards. 
Heading s 5 : . 27,400 nk 
New tunnel to central shaft, eastend, . 86,900 is 
West end enlargement, eastward, . «20,000 < 


New tunnel from west heading to central 
Cee OE ES 165 O15 0 a 
Central drain, . ; , : ; ae a 


Total excavation for tunnel from east 
end to west shaft, including cen- 
tral drain, . f : : . 810,781 cubic yards. 





This will give the contractor ten dollars and forty-five cents 
per cubic yard. 
If anybody believes any honest contract can be made with 


satisfactory guarantees for doing this work for this money, he 
8 


58 


can only come to that conclusion by shutting his eyes to all the 
experience of the past and literally going it blind. Let us look 
at a few facts. | | 

The State has excavated up to Jan. 1, 1868, (see page 9,) 
42,956 cubic yards, at a cost, without interest, (see page 22,) 
of $2,459,044, averaging $57.27 per cubic yard. This includes 
whole cost of buildings, dam and machinery, which would make 
the cost greater at the commencement than at any subsequent 
period. At the central shaft, 6,900 cubic yards have been exca- 
vated at a cost of $262,768, averaging $38.37 per cubic yard. 
Here the cost of buildings and machinery has been comparatively 
small. 

If it be objected that the cost of the whole work does not 
give a fair basis, let us take last year’s work, which was con- 
ducted by Col. Crocker with all the energy and economy of 
which he is capable. The State excavated 18,473 cubic yard, 
at a cost, deducting amount paid Dull, Gowan & Co., of $550, 
506, averaging $29.70 per cubic yard. Including the work 
done by Dull, Gowan & Co., (which, remember, was done at a 
loss,) the whole amount of excavation was 25,808 cubic yards, 
at a cost of $603,666, averaging $23.88 per cubic yard. Mr. 
Latrobe says, in his last report, (Senate Doc., No. 20, pp. 50 
and 51,) that it cost the State at the east end $24.46 per cubic 
yard, and at the west end $20.70 per cubic yard, “ not includ- 
ing any part of the cost of the machinery and buildings con- 
nected there with nor of the expense of engineering and super- ° 
intendence.”” The same remark applies to my calculation of 
cost last year, as the charges to machinery and buildings were 
only a little over $80,000, hardly sufficient to pay ordinary wear 
and tear. 

Now, if any man believes that a responsible contract can be 
made for doing this work at less than half what it cost the State 
last year, exclusive of cost of machinery and building, the con- 
tractor to furnish both, or, which in the end is the same thing, 
keep them in “ complete repair,’ he must be under the influ- 
ence of the charity which believeth all things. 

I do not doubt that many persons have honestly entertained 
the opinion, that this work could be let out under contract 
much cheaper than it could be done by the State. This is by 
no means settled. Possibly the State might let out certain por- 


59 


tions of the work to be done by the cubic yard somewhat 
cheaper than she has done it, she taking all risks of extraor- 
dinary contingencies. But when it is proposed to make a con- 
tract for the entire work, the risks are so great, the contingen- 
cies so uncertain, that a responsible contractor must provide a 
very wide margin, and feeling the necessity of such margin, a 
prudent contractor would not agree to do the work for much 
less than it would cost the State. 

I have as yet seen no evidence that the work was not done 
under Col. Crocker last year as economically as it could have 
been done by anybody. I know Col. Crocker well. I know his 
energy, his perseverance, his indomitable will, all inspired by 
intense enthusiasm for this enterprise. He knew that last year 
was to be a test year, and that if he could not go before the 
legislature with satisfactory results, he had but little hope of 
further appropriations. He devoted himself, body and soul, day 
and night, in season and out of season, to this, his darling work. 
He was opposed to letting out any of the work, (except the 
‘“* demoralized rock,” ) by contract, because he firmly believed 
that he could carry on the work more efficiently and (giving 
him him credit as I do without reserve of meaning to serve the 
State faithfully,) more economically than anybody else. The 
contracts made against his opposition failed. He pushed the 
work with his utmost vigor, cutting off all extraordinary expendi- 
tures, reducing repairs of machinery to their minimum, for the 
purpose of showing the largest results for the smallest expendi- 
ture. There is the result—$29.70 per cubic yard for his work, 
_ with but a fraction of the cost of machinery included in that ! 

What was to be done? He knew the legislature would not 
appropriate a dollar for continuing the work under the old sys- 
tem. He knew, too,—for a different opinion condemns his own 
management,—he knew that no contractor could do the work 
materially cheaper than he had done it, and that, if a contract 
was made, im the end the tunnel would cost the State as much 
as if he carried it on; but he knew there was no alternative, 
and, as a forlorn hope, he concluded to try, or rather to indute 
the State to try, the last dodge—a contract. 

In considering the question whether a bona fide contract can 
be made with “ satisfactory guarantees”? to complete the tunnel 
for the appropriation, it must be borne in mind that the price 


60 


we have arrived at covers the entire margin for contingencies 
and profits. 

Now, no prudent man would make a contract, which he 
meant to carry out, amounting to nearly five millions, without 
a margin of at least twenty per cent. I am assuming that 
everything is straightforward and above board—in as good faith 
on the part of the contractor to the State as we know it will be 
on the part of the State to the contractor; in a word, that 
nobody is to be cheated, that the contractor assumes all the 
risks, all the contingencies, and honestly intends and gives 
adequate security for fulfilling that intention (no bogus 
security of twenty per cent. reservation,) to deliver to the State, 
at the specified time, 4% miles of completed tunnel and 6% 
miles of road ready for use. 

I repeat, no responsible contractor would think of making 
such a contract without a margin of at least a million dollars 
to cover risks and profits. Deducting this million from amount 
available for excavation and he would receive $7.80 per cubic 
yard, leaving his margin for risks and profits. 


flow was tt brought about ? 


How could the legislature be induced to sanetion another 
dollar of expenditure for this worthless job ? Nothing, even in 
the doings of last winter, can destroy my abiding faith that no 
legislature can be elected by such a constituency, a majority of 
whose members are not governed by honest convictions of what 
they believe to be the public interests. They may make mis- 
takes, but they, the large majority, are not corrupt. In every 
legislature there is a class of members who form positive and 
intelligent opinions upon one side or the other of important 
public questions. Between. the two divisions of this class there 
is always an uncertain force, consisting of persons who have no 
well-considered convictions upon many matters, some of whom 
are honest but pliable ; some under the bias of personal or local 
prejudice or interest; a few, a very few, I believe, in a Massa- 
chusetts legislature consciously venal and corrupt. It is upon 
the weakness or wickedness of this middle class, the floating 
drift-wood, that log-rolling and lobbying are brought to bear. 

Of the disturbing forces operating upon our legislature, 


61 


LoG—ROLLING, 


that is, combinations between parties for the exchange of votes 
and influence, has been the most mischievous. Fifteen years 
practice has made the tunnel Ring adepts in this disreputable 
trade. The tunnel vote proper in the House numbers only 30 
or 40, less than one-sixth of the House. This would seem an 
~ utterly contemptible power; and yet, it will be remembered, 
that nearly all contested questions are decided by a smaller 
majority than this number. And by virtue of compactness, 
unscrupulousness, singleness of purpose, audacity and a readi- 
ness to sell their yotes for or against any measure, without 
regard to its merits as a matter of public policy, this mercenary 
band wields a power vastly disproportioned to its numbers. I 
will not now enter into the details of their shameless bargains ; 
it is notorious that upon every scheme of plunder, every measure 
of doubtful expediency, indeed upon every closely contested 
question, this pestilent element sold itself to the side with which 
it could make the best trade. 

It is mainly as agents or brokers for negotiating these log- 
rolling arrangements that 


THE Lonsy 


has exercised its baneful influence. 

Of itself, the lobby is a harmless, nay, it may be a useful 
institution. The theory of legislation, it is true, is that all 
information shall reach the legislature through its committees, 
and every careful, conscientious legislator will receive with dis- 
trust all information which comes through any other channel. 
Such a legislator will be wise in receiving any facts which may 
be presented by persons whom he knows to be men of reliability 
and character, even though they may have a personal or local 
interest in the matter atissue. It is the professional, mercenary 
lobby that has become a public scandal in our legislation. This 
lobby had its origin in, and owes its perpetuation solely to, the 
tunnel. This gang, selling themselves to either party upon any 
question, (except that they never lobby against the tunnel ;) 
prostituting personal and political influences to the wretched 
purpose of influencing legislation, without regard to public 
policy; hunting usually in couples, sometimes in full pack ; 
without convictions, without compunctions, without malice 


62 


‘even,—these shameless shysters ply their disreputable trade in 
open day in Massachusetts halls of legislation, and hold nightly 
celebrations over their success in humbugging us simple- 
minded: country people. If there be no.other way of getting 
rid of these parasites upon the body politic.—worse than the 
frogs and flies of Egypt combined,—it would be better for the 
legislature to pay every guerilla of them a pension quadruple 
the amount of their ill-gotten gains. I do not believe that 
their influence is at all proportioned to their assurance and 
their pay ; it is the presence of such professional mercenaries 
that must stir the indignation of every high-minded man. 

It is very humiliating to refer to such things as having 
existed and now existing in Massachusetts. Rather would we 
shut our eyes to facts which bring a blush of shame to the face 
of every right-minded citizen, and inflict upon the fair name 
and upon the honest legislation of the Commonwealth an injury 
which financial loss can hardly parallel. Rather would we 


“ Walk backward with averted face 
And hide our shame.”’ 


But it is due to public morality to hold up their acts to 
universal scorn 


‘“‘ And put in every honest hand a whip, 
And lash the rascals naked from the State.’’ 


Still, the personel of the lobby is so contemptible as to 
ability and character that undue influence is popularly 
attached to their operations. It is solely as brokers, procurers, 
pimps, that they are useful to their principals. Their hauntin 
Avon Place, furnished by their more guilty employers, with 
attractions for the weak, the unwary and the wicked, is simply 
an assignation-house, where voters in the market can be brought 
together and terms of exchange arranged. The keepers of such 
houses are not solely responsible for the vile deeds which there 
hide from the sun; this must be divided with those who are 
only too willing to be debauched. 

The modus operandi is this: As soon or even before the 
legislature meets, these brokers are on the ground, scanning 
the characters of members, forming the acquaintance of new 
members and flattering them with attentions, ascertaining what 


65 


*‘ big things”’ will be up during the session, and using all avail- 
able arts to magnify their own importance and influence. For 
those who cannot be enticed into their Avon Place haunt, suppers 
and excursions are arranged. By various appliances, aided by 
the ingenuity and experience of the Ring,—for, remember, that 
all these negotiations are in the interest of the tunnel, never 
against it,—the parties in interest are brought together and the 
brokers are ready for business. They hold in their hands so 
many votes for the Cape Cod Harbor, so many for Maverick 
Bridge, so many against the Horn Pond Railroad, so many 
against the Hyde Park petitioners,—that is, against the. boun- 
dary line which they preferred,—so many in favor of increasing 
the pay of members. 

So openly and so incessantly was this traffic driven during 
the last few days of the session, when the tunnel was pending, 
and its friends were pushed as they never were before, that one 
of the ablest and most high-minded members of the House 
remarked, ‘‘ The atmosphere of the State House is thick with 
corruption ; and were it not that I believe in the tunnel as a 
measure of public policy, I should feel it my duty to rebuke © 
this profligacy by voting against the tunnel.” 

No matter what the merits of a case were, it was decided 
solely by its relations to the tunnel. Take, for instance, the 
Horn Pond Railroad case. Mr. Addison Gage, one of our most 
public spirited, honorable and enterprising merchants, wanted 
to reach deep tide-water to enable him to compete with other 
ice-dealers for the foreign market. His only access to deep 
water is over the Fitchburg Railroad,—that corporation 
which, despising short traffic, opposed it,—and this was the only 
real opposition ; and this influence, backed by the entire Ring, 
defeated this measure—than which, whether the public interests 
involved or the private character of the petitioners be consid- 
ered, none better entitled to favorable action was ever presented 
to the legislature. But the leading friends of the measure in 
the House opposed the tunnel; and when, being assured by the 
leader of the Ring, that if they would withdraw opposition to 
the tunnel, they spurned the bribe, the bill was doomed. 

Behind the lobby and greater than the lobby, inspiring, con- 
trolling, paying it, stand two powerful railroad corporations— 
the Fitchburg and the Vermont and Massachusetts, with their 


64 


array of officers and retainers, past, present and expectant. 
These creatures of the State, living and moving.at the pleasure 
of the legislature, these corporations prostitute their great 
powers to the one purpose of swindling the people of the State 
out of millions for a job which benefits nobody but themselves. 
They know perfectly well that although the tunnel, if finished, 
will never bring new traffic to Massachusetts to warrant the 
expenditure of one-tenth of its cost, yet, dividing the traffic of 
existing lines, it will bring considerable traffic to their roads, 
and to the end of pushing the tunnel through, they apply all 
their energies with intense and unscrupulous selfishness. 

Not content with superintending the nominations and elec- 
tions along their entire lines, the officers of these corporations, 
impudently besieging the rooms of the President of the Senate, 
and the Speaker of the House, dictating the organization of the 
Tunnel and Railroad Committees, placing the Superintendent of 
one of their roads on the Railroad Committee, by the various 
appliances which bold bad men know too well how to use, 
including free passes, free excursions and free rum, exert 
an influence over legislation, unsuspected by those who never 
studied this phase of human depravity ; and these very men, 
thus shamelessly interfering with legislation for the sole purpose 
of putting the people’s money in their own pockets, are all the 
time denouncing the Boston and Albany Railroad as opposing 
the tunnel. Ask the President of the Senate and the Speaker 
of the House, if any officer of the Boston and Albany Railroad, 
directly or indirectly, suggested the appointment of any member 
of any committee last winter ; and ask them, too, if the officers 
of the Vermont and Massachusetts and Fitchburg Railroads did 
not bore them beyond endurance (or rather one of them, for I 
suspect the other was ‘ willing.”) It is an old trick for the 
culprit to raise first, and shout loudest, the cry “ stop-thief.”’ 
The Boston and Albany Railroad Company is grasping and sel- 
fish ; these gentlemen are public-spirited and disinterested ! 


‘True patriots they ; for be it understood, 
They bleed their country for their country’s good.”’ 


But after all, giving their full weight, to these selfish and 
disreputable influences, unaided, they could not have carried 
the appropriation. There was a class of honest, independent 


* 


65 


legislators, who would have opposed an original proposition to 
embark the State in such.a work, but who yet voted for the 
appropriation and without whose votes and influence it could 
not have been carried. A part of these voted for it on the 
eround that the State is in it and must go through. As a busi- 
ness proposition, this is too absurd to deserve much discussion. 
The only question in considering the expediency of continuing 
an enterprise is—will it pay to send new dollars after old ones? 
If, all things considered, it will pay to finish the tunnel from 
this time, go on; if not stop. 

But there was another portion of this class to whom the mat- 
ter presented itself in this shape. They were satisfied it would 
be ruinous to proceed under the present system ; but they were 
brought to believe that the management would be materially 
improved. LHspecially they were deluded with the idea, which 
was never thoroughly discussed, that the work could be much 
more economically done under the contract system. They 
were fully impressed with the importance of banishing this 
pestilent element from legislation and politics, and, their wish 
being father to the thought, they wére too ready to welcome a 
proposition which promised to end the matter for all time. 
They said,—*‘ The friends of the tunnel assure. us, that they 
can finish the tunnel for five millions. We take them at their 
word. We will give them the five millions to get rid of them; 
but we will tie their hands so that they cannot spend the money 
without completing the work. We will require that the whole 
shall be done under one contract, will reserve one-fifth for secu- 
rity and will demand ‘satisfactory guarantees.’”’ Alas, they 
forgot that similar “satisfactory guarantees’’ were required 
that the two million loan should complete the work, and yet, 
that has gone and three or four millions more, and not one- 
sixth part of the work is done. They forgot that the enterprise 
is in,the hands of men who will scruple at nothing to accom- 
plish their selfish purposes, as abundantly appears from their 
swift contempt of the intentions of the legislature in providing 


for unlimited expenditure by proposing separate contracts. 


How thoroughly these gentlemen were deceived, appears 
from the following statement. They were given to understand, 
and that was the expectation of every -honest man in the legis- 
lature, that the appropriations made this year would complete 

9 


66 


the railroad and tunnel, and thus at the end of seven years put 
the State in possession of a completed road, ready for the equip- 
ment. This expectation furnished the basis of their belief, that 
by voting for these appropriations they should deliver future 
legislation from this malign element. Chapter 833, applied 
$250,000 to the completion of the railroad, and chapter 350 took 
$250,000 more out of the five millions for work done before 
October Ist, on road and tunnel. I repeat, every honest man 
understood that the assurance was, and the conditions upon 
which the appropriations were made, was, that these two sums 
should complete the railroad and the $4,750,000 should com- 
plete the tunnel. And yet, I have shown (page 5,) and I chal- 
lenge refutation of the statement, that on the basis of an honest 
fulfilment of the contract, it will cost between seven and eight 
millions to complete the tunnel and railroad; and I have 
shown elsewhere, to the conviction of all fair minded men, that 
it will cost double that amount; and yet this year’s action was 
to be final—no more appropriations; no more log-rolling—no 
more Avon Place debaucheries. 


NOTHING IS SETTLED THAT IS NOT Ricu7. 


No legislature can tie the hands of its successors. The 
question of continuing the work on the tunnel will be open for 
the action of the next legislature as fully as if the legislature 
had never met. Any contract made under authority of the 
last legislature can be set aside by the authority of the next 
legislature, subject to an equitable claim for damages on the 
part of the contractor; and no contractor can complain, for 
every respectable lawyer will tell him that he makes a contract 
with the Commonwealth, subject to this liability. Indeed, we 
presume no contract will be made which does not distinctly 
contain the right on the part of the Commonwealth to annul it 
at any time, on payment to the contractor of actual expgndi- 
tures. If this right is not reserved, it will only add another to 
the proofs that in dealing with the tunnel the interests of the 
State are not as jealously protected as they are in this respect 
in all other contracts. f 

Kspecially, if to this undoubted right of the Commonwealth 
to close a contract whenever, in the judgment of the legislature, 
public policy requires it, there be added the consideration that 


67 


the contract is tainted with fraud throughout; that representa- 
tions were made that the work could be completed for five mil- 
lions, and that it. will cost far more,—really more than 
double,—and the parties to the contract knew it; still further, 
when it appears that the legislature intended, and made that 
intention as clear as language honestly interpreted could make 
it, that the whole work should be done under one contract, and 
that this purpose of the legislature has been defeated, such a 
contract could not stand an hour before an intelligent and 
honest legislature, and no contractor would dare to present a 
claim for damages. 


THe UxLtiMate TRIBUNAL. 

J appeal to the tax-payers—in no penny wise and pound foolish 
policy, with no agrarian cry of the ‘rich against the poor,” 
with. no disposition to withhold liberal expenditures for valuable 
results, even without pecuniary profits—but with an emphatic 
protest against this squandering of hard-earned money for worth- 
less purposes. Remember that we have not yet begun to feel 
the burden of the taxation which the tunnel has involved and 
will involve. But a small fraction of past expenditures has 
been raised by taxation. The original two millions were bor- 
rowed, and a three million loan was authorized last winter to pay. . 
past expenditures. Another loan of five millions was author- 
ized to pay for expenditures under the contract. Unknown 
millions are to follow, if the work is continued; all this must 
be paid by us or by our posterity. Pay day will come: it comes 
twice a year for the interest. The appropriation is easy; the 
raising of the money is easy; but it means more than this:. 
sooner or later it means the inexorable tax collector, entering 
with equal foot the rich man’s palace and the poor man’s hovel. 
To the majority of our people it means self-denial; here, the 
loss of a coveted picture; there, the loss of a comfortable 
article of furniture; here, the invalid pines for a plate of fruit 
or a pleasant drive; there, books, amusements, the thousand 
little gratifications which become necessaries to those who can 
afford them—all these went away in the tax collector’s pocket. 

I know —and no man is prouder of it—how gladly this people 
pay taxes for all good purposes; but as I follow these appro- 
priations, as they are distributed to every hamlet and every 


68 


household, and know that to large masses of people they involve 
self-denial and suffering, I cannot help denouncing the men 
who demand these appropriations, for selfish and sectional pur- 
poses alone, as oppressors and robbers of the people. 

Over the head of a selfish Ring, over the heads of timid, 
trading politicians, over the heads of facile, not to say corrupt, 
legislators, I appeal to the people. I invoke the public press to 
enlighten the ‘people. Let this matter go into every caucus 
and every convention for the nominations of candidates to both 
branches of legislature. Republicans of Massachusetts! You 
will elect an overwhelming majority of the next legislature. 
You will be responsible for its acts. See to it, first of all, that 
every man of that majority is in favor of the re-election of 
CHARLES SUMNER to the Senate of the United States. See 
to it, as next in importance, that no man is nominated whose 
course willbe doubtful upon this question. If you are in favor of 
continuing this useless expenditure, select your candidate for 
that, purpose. If you are against it, let that opposition be 
equally represented. Turn your backs on the jackals and jockies. 
Elect only men you can trust. Purify and elevate our legislation 
and deliver our politics from this demoralizing, debauching power. 
Banish from the State house the venal crew who make it cost a 
decent man all his self-respect to ask for common justice, and 
rescue the proud old Commonwealth from the connection which 
is eating up the substance of her people and poisoning the 
fountains of private and public morality. 


P.S. Since the first edition was issued, the expressions of 
indignation, from the press and from members of the legisla- 
ture, in relation to fhe attempt of the commissioners to violate 
the clear purpose of the law, have been so emphatic, that it is 
presumed the governor and council will approve no proposals 
for doing the work under separate contracts. There is little 
danger that the governor and council, wpon whom the legisla- 
ture placed the entire responsibility of making this contract, 
should divide this responsibility with the commissioners,—st Il 
less, that they will follow such blinded guides. It was a piece 
of assumption in the commissioners to advertise for proposals. 
The Act gave them no authority in the premises. Undoubtedly 


69 


the governor and council could employ those three Honeiane as 
their agents, but as private individuals, not as commissioners ; 
and they have no authority to sign the advertisement as com- 
missioners, still less, to make any contract as such; and any - 
contract made by them as commissioners is void ab initio. 
‘* The commissioners”? are not mentioned or alluded to in the 
whole legislation relating to the tunnel, except in the last sec- 
tion of chapter 333, and then solely for the purpose of abolish- 
ing the board; and this was not accidental ; for the legislature 
intended to give them no new power, but simply to allow them 
to close their affairs on the first of October, determined then to 
be rid of them. _ | | 

I repeat, the entire responsibility of making a@ contract rests 
with the governor and council. ‘They are hereby authorized 
to contract for the whole work ;” ‘in case a contract should 
be made by the governor and council, &c., &c.”’ Sect. 2.—** The 
governor and council are hereby authorized to contract, &., 
&c.”’ Contracts for other work outside of the five million con- 
tract are made subject to the approval of the governor and 
council ; all these expenditures, the issuing of the scrip, every- 
thing else is subject to their approval, but of this contract and 
the expenditure of the five millions they have original and sole 
control. It is their duty to make the contract, and the respon- 
sibility is upon them to carry out the intentions of the legisla- 
ture. They must see that it is an honest contract; that it 
binds the contractor to complete the entire road and tunnel in 
seven years and for five millions, the contractor to take all risks, 
ordinary and extraordinary ; that one-fifth of the price shall 
be reserved fill the completion of the work, and that, in ad- 
dition to this reservation, *‘ satisfactory guarantees ”’ shall be 
given. If, for instance, a bond for half a million should be 
taken as a “ satisfactory guarantee,” this amount cannot, with- 
out violating the manifest intention of the legislature, be de- 
ducted from the twenty per cent. reservation. 


THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 

If this were the be all and end all; if, as the legislature in- 
tended, these five millions would finish the road and tunnel, 
and if, farther, we should then have a great commercial road, 
(without traffic, to be sure,) built and equipped with a double 


70 


track, aril of competing with existing lines, I would readily 
yield the five millions, if there were no cheaper method of sev- 
ering the connection of the State with this pestilent power. 
But no such consummation can be expected. 

I have shown on ‘page 5 that on the basis of an honest con- 
tract for completing road and tunnel this five million appropri- 
ation will amount, including interest, before the road is open, 
to $6,036,560; that adding the cost of double track to North 
Adams, and 6,89, miles more beyond North Adams, of enlarg- 
ing small tunnel beyond North Adams, of building the road 
west of the west.portal, and of equipment, station houses, &c., 
&c., for the entire line, it will amount to over two millions more. 
This will bring the cost to over eight millions. But I have 
shown that the supposition that the road and tunnel, even to 
the west portal, can be finished for five millions is simply pre- 
posterous. Following as our only guide the experience of the 
past, considering the probable, the inevitable increase of cost 
as the work enters farther into the mountain, the conclusion is 
irresistible that the completion of this work will cost ten, twelve, 
fifteen millions. 


TAX-PAYERS OF MASSACHUSETTS ! 


I leave this whole question with you. You are to elect the 
next legislature. I know full well what your verdict would be 
if the subject were referred directly to your votes. The control 
is equally in your hands through the senators and representa- 
tives. Examine the tables in the appendix, which give the 
amount which your town pays of a State tax of one million, 
multiply that amount by eight, ten, fifteen, and you will know 
what your citizens will be taxed, sooner or later, for this utterly 
fruitless enterprise, and decide whether you will send to the 
legislature senators and representatives who will impose this 
burden upon yourselves and your children. Examine the yeas 
and nays and spot the men who betrayed you fash winter. 
There is only one thing to be done. 


STOP THE SUPPLIES. 
Bis, this wicked waste of honestly earned money. Stop the 
work. If the tunnel is worth finishing, it is worth it only to 
the connecting roads,—the Troy and Boston, the Vermont and 


71 


Massachusetts and the Fitchburg. This enterprise benefits 
them alone. So long as they can corrupt your representatives, 
so long as they can, by whatever means, keep the State in this 
work, they will not lift a finger for its prosecution. They know 
that in the end it must fall into their hands, and their only 
aim is to extort ten or fifteen millions more from you. Say to 
them, “‘ This road when finished is worth something to you ; it 
is worth nothing to us; take it and be off.” This is just what 
New York did with the Erie Railway. Having expended about 
four millions she stopped, gave it to the parties interested, and 
they finished it. These corporations will do the same thing if 
the road is worth finishing. If not worth finishing by them, 
for a still stronger reason, it is not worth finishing by the State. 
If they finish it, well; if not, let it stand forever as a warning 
to future generations against committing the Commonwealth to 
chimerical and ruinous enterprises. 

Consider the uses to which the cost of the tunnel, fruitlessly 
squandered, might be applied. Of the admitted cost, Suffolk 
County will pay $2,785,360 ; of the probable cost, she will pay 
$4,222,550; she will pay, in annual perpetual interest, $348,- 
170. The proposition, which ought to have been adopted 
twenty years ago, is just now being discussed—that of found- 
ing in Boston a free college. The sum wasted on the tunnél 
would give such an institution a more munificent endowment 
than is received by any educational institution in the world. 
The sum to be paid by the whole State would endow, in every 
county in the State, a free college, with a larger income than 
any college in the State. Compare the blessings of a dozen 
such institutions, offering to every son and daughter of the 
Commonwealth the largest, most generous culture which 
money could command, free, with an expenditure without the 
slightest, benefit. Commute these millions into the thousand 
beneficent purposes to which they might be applied,—tax your- 
selves for these purposes, if you will; but stop the throwing of 
other millions into this merciless Maelstrom. ; 


72 


AIP oP N DD xy 


Mr. Dana's Amendment—to strike out $600,000. - 
Suffolk County. 


YEAS. Nays. 
Sydney F. Whitelkouse, Boston, Dexter A. Tompkins, Boston, 
Dennis Cawley, Jr., es Hodgdon F. Buzzell, ‘ 
John M. Tobin, Z Thomas J. Gargan, + 
Murdock Matheson, “ Dexter S. King, . 
James L. Locke, * John P. Ordway, FE 
Ellis W. Morton, Py Otis Rich, a 
Linus M. Child, 4 John J. Smith, * 
Patrick A. Collins, i P. Ambrose Young, 5; 
Charles H. Blanchard, ES Newell A. Thompson, . 
Noah M. Gaylord, - James A. Fox, sg 
George F. Williams, “4 Noble H. Hill, iM 
Samuel Freeman, Chelsea. ’ Henry Souther, x 


Thomas H. Carruth, Chelsea. 


Essex County. 


J. R. Huntington, Amesbury, Charles W. Chase, Haverhill, 
J. G. Tewksbury, Westy Newbury, | Albert Blood, Lawrence, 

S. K. Towle, Haverhill, Rufus Adams, Newburyport, 
John Perley, Bradford, - Leonard McKenzie, Essex, 
John K. Tarbox, Lawrence, Edwin Mudge, Danvers, 
Roscoe W. Gage, Boxford, .J. Warren Stevens, South Danvers, 
G. W. Jackman, Jr., Newburyport, | William H. Burbeck, Salem, 
George W. Woodwell, 46 Thomas 8S. Waters, :: 
Joseph Ross, Ipswich, William W. Kellogg, Lynn, 
Benjamin EF’. Cook, Gloucester, William Howland. ¥ 
Josiah O. Friend, a 


Moses Pool, Rockport, 

Joseph Wilson, Beverly, 

- John Lee, Manchester, 

George H. Peirson, Salem, 

William B. Brown, Marblehead, 

Stephen C. Felton, ff ‘i 

Benjamin Proctor, Lynn, anne 
Jacob P. Towne, Topsfield. 


73 


Middlesex County. 


YAS. 


Nays. 


Thomas Cunningham, Charlestown, | Rufus A. White, Charlestown, 


_ John A. Hughes, Somerville, 
John Runey, ff 
George P. Cox, Malden, 
Joseph S. Potter, Arlington, 
R. H. Dana, Jr., Cambridge, 
George E. Allen, Newton, 
Royal 8. Warren, Waltham, 
Willard Mann, Natick, 
Francis E. Cushing, Holliston, 
William Seaver, Ashland, 
George Phipps, Framingham, 
Willard Wheeler, Sudbury, 
Levi S. Gould, Melrose, © 
Nathan P. Pratt, Reading, 
Oliver W. Smith, Lowell. 


William Sherburne, “ 
Caleb Rand, 5 
James A. Hervey, Medford, 
John McDuffie, Cambridge, 
Curtis Davis, 

George E. Bridges, Newton, 
Henry M. Clarke, Belmont, 
Hugh R. Bean, Marlborough, 
Francis W. Warren, Stow, 
John C. Blasdel, Lexington, 
Dudley Foster, Billerica, 
Benjamin J. Williams, Lowell, 


James B. Francis, fe 
Josiah Gates, es 
William McFarlin, « 


George W. Heywood, Westford, 
Levi Wallace, Pepperell, 
Jonathan Pierce, Townsend. 


Worcester County. 


A. G. Walker, Worcester, 
J.S. Woodworth, “ 
J. H. Wood, Grafton, 
William Knowlton, Upton, 
Isaac H. Stearns, Milford, 
Moses Farnum, Blackstone, 
Lament B. Corbin, Oxford, 
William D. Jones, Douglas, 
J. H. Hathaway, Charlton, ° 
Amasa C. Morse, Sturbridge, 
Joseph B. Lombard, Warren. 


10 


Windsor N. White, Winchendon, 
J. A. Rich, Royalston, 

Charles Heywood, Gardner, 
William Mixter, Hardwick, 

J. Otis Hale, Hubbardston, 
George E. ‘Towne, Fitchburg, 
Otis T. Ruggles, ‘ 

Howard M. Lane, Leominster, 
Solomon H. Howe, Bolton, 
Charles W. Worcester, Clinton, 
Wallace McFarland, W. Boylston, 
P. A. Beaman, Princeton, 

D. A. Goddard, Worcester, : 
Warren Williams, “ | 
Edward S. Stebbins, “ 

P. A. Thompson, f 

Samuel Appleton, Southborough, 
Charles Wing, Uxbridge, 

Silas Dunton, Millbury, 

Lory S. Watson, Leicester. 


74 


Hampshire County. 
YEAS. Nays. 
William F. Arnold, Northampton, | Henry S. Porter, Hatfield, 
Edward H. Lathrop, Huntington, | Horace Ward, Amherst. 
Philo Chapin, Granby, 
Henry Bassett, Ware. 





Hampden County. 


Joel B. Williams, Monson, Thaddeus K. DeWolf, Chester. 
William R. Sessions, Wilbraham, ; 

Charles L. Shaw, Springfield, 

Tilly Haynes, . 

George Walker, at 

Edwin N. Snow, Chicopee, 

Ezra H. Flagg, Holyoke, 

Ralph 8. Brown, Granville, 

Charles A. Fox, W. Springfield, 

William G. Bates, Westfield. 


Franklin County. 
John D. Flagg, Orange, 


foloh) 
Frederick W. Field, Leverett, 
George W. Potter, Greenfield, 
Thomas J. Field, Northfield, 
Henry S. Ranney, Ashfield, 
Samuel T. Field, Shelburne, 


Roger H. Leavitt, Charlemont. 


Berkshire Oounty. 


Thomas F. Plunkett, Pittsfield, Tred. A. Morey, Williamstown, 

Edw’d A. Hulbert, G’t Barrington, | Shepherd Thayer, Adams, 

A. J. Freeman, New Marlborough.! Jonas A. Champney, Cheshire, 
Henry H. Cook, Richmond, 
Charles J. Kittredge, Hinsdale, 
Mason Van Dusen, Stockbridge, 
Alanson Crittenden, Otis. 


Norfolk County. 


John R. Bullard, Dedham, Edw’d H. R. Ruggles, Porc 
Charles A. Hewins, W. Roxbury, | John H. Robinson, 

George M. Hobbs, Roxbury, E. Watson Arnold, Braintree, 
Isaac H. Meserve, Ks Daniel Howard, Randolph, 

John Quincy Adams, Quincy, Joseph Leavitt, Canton, 


Alvah Raymond, Jr., Weymouth, | Thomas Parsons, Brookline. 


15 


Norfolk County—Con. 


YEAS. 
Henry Newton, Weymouth. 
Orlando B. Crane, Stoughton, 
Leander §. Daniels, Medway, 
James T. Ford, Wrentham, 
Henry E. Pond, Franklin, 
George K. Daniell, Needham. 


NAys. 


Bristol County. 


Augustus Lane, Norton, 

John H. Swain, Easton, 

Jeremy B. Dennett, Taunton, 
Walter S. Sprague, $ 
William A. King, Rehoboth, 
Abraham G. Hart, Fall River, 
Weaver Osborn, ey 

Jram Smith, “ 

EE. P. Brownell, Westport, _ 
William Barker, Jr., Dartmouth, 
Joseph W. Cornell, New Bedford, 
James B. Wood, e 
William H. Reynard. “ 


Job M. Leonard, Somerset, 
Oliver H. P. Brown, New Bedford, 
Lewis S. Judd, Fairhaven, 


Plymouth County. 


David Cushing, 2d, Hingham, 
Morton V. Bonney, Hanover, 
Josiah S. Hammond, Plympton, 
George Sandford, Wareham, 
Levi A. Abbott, Middleborough, 
Simeon Perkins, Bridgewater, 

C. C. Bixby, North Bridgewater. 


John Manson, Scituate, 

Eden Wadsworth, Duxbury, 

Charles H. Drew, Plymouth, 
Walter B. Studley, Abington, 
Dan Packard, es 


Barnstable County. 


Heman B. Chase, Yarmouth, 
Alvah Holway, Sandwich, 
Lemuel B. Simmons, Barnstable, 
Seth Crowell, Dennis, 

Ensign B. Rogers, Orleans. 


Samuel H. Gould, Brewster, 
Henry Shortle, Provincetown. 


Dukes County. 


Charles Bradley, Tisbury. 


Nantucket County. 


William H. Waitt, Nantucket. 


Yeas, 114; Nays, 99. 


76 


ABSENT OR NOT VOTING. 
Charles R. Train, Boston, 


Hiram S Shurtleff, “ 
Daniel H. Whitney, “ 
H. Jewell, (Speaker,)“ 


Anson P. Hooker, Cambridge, 
Charles H. Fiske, Weston, 
David D. Hart, Woburn, 

J. F. Mansfield, South Reading, 


Richmond Kingman, Cummington, 
John Severson, Springfield, 

"| William Seaver, Roxbury, 
Charles Stanwood, “ 
Willard Blackinton, Attleborough, 
Eben N. Wardwell, Swampscott, 
Nathan S. Williams, Taunton, 
William Whiting, Pembroke, 
Eleazer Richmond, Lakeville, 
Irving Bates, E. Bridgewater, 
John H. Bangs, Eastham. 


Thomas J. Fay, . 
Nathaniel C. Nash, “ 

Edward H. Pierce, °“ 

Charles W. Wilder, “ 
Hubbard W. Tilton, “ 

J. W. F. Willson, “ 

Charles Bird, Jr., North Chelsea, 
W. iH. P. Wright, Lawrence, 
John A. Wiley, North Andover, 
George H. Long, Charlestown, 
John Livermore, Cambridge, 


Third Reading. 
Suffolk County. 
YEAS. Nays. 

Dexter A. Tompkins, Boston, Sydney F. Whitehouse, Boston, 
Hodgdon F. Buzzell, & James L. Locke, os 
Dennis Cawley, Jr., a George F. Williams, as 
Thomas J. Gargan, £ John M. Tobin, a 
Dexter 8. King, é§ Samuel Freeman, Chelsea. 
Ellis W. Morton, fs 
John P. Ordway, j 
Otis Rich, 
Linus M. Child, | ¥ 
John J. Smith, < 
Patrick A. Collins, sé 
Charles H. Blanchard, “ 
Noah M. Gaylord, if 
P. Ambrose Young, a 
Newell A. Thompson, “ 
James A. Fox, Fe 
Henry Souther, e 


‘Thomas H. Carruth, Chelsea. 


Essex County. 
Charles W. Chase, Haverhill, 
Albert Blood, Lawrence, 
Rufus Adams, Newburyport, 


J. R. Huntington, Amesbury, 
Ja’s G. Tewksbury, W. Newbury, 
S. K. Towle, Haverhill, | 


TT 


Essex County—Con. 


YRAS. Nays. 
Leonard McKenzie, Essex, John Perley, Bradford, 
Edwin Mudge, Danvers, Roscoe W. Gage, Boxford, 
J. Warren Stevens, So. Danvers, | Gs W. Jackman, Jr., Newburyport, 
George H. Peirson, Salem, ' | George W. Woodwell, 66 
William H. Burbeck, “ Joseph Ross, Ipswich, 
Thomas 8. Waters, “ Benjamin F. Cook, Gloucester, 
William W. Kellogg, Lynn, ~ { Josiah O. Friend; Y 
William Howland, “ Moses Pool, Rockport, 


Joseph Wilson, Beverly, 

John Lee, Manchester, 

William B. Brown, Marblehead, 
Stephen C. Felton, a 
Benjamin Proctor, Lynn. 


Middlesex County. 


Thomas Cunningham, Charlestown, | John A. Hughes, Somerville, 


Rufus A. White, ~ John Runey, e 
William Sherburne, ¢ Joseph S. Potter, Arlington, 
Caleb Rand, e R. H. Dana, Jr., Cambridge, 
George P. Cox, Malden, Anson P. Hooker, ss 
James A. Hervey, Medford, Royal S$. Warren, Waltham, 
John McDuffie, Cambridge, Willard Mann, Natick, 

Curtis Davis, af William Seaver, Ashland, 
George E. Allen, Newton, ' | George Phipps, Framingham, 
George E. Bridges, “ . Willard Wheeler, Sudbury, 
Henry M. Clarke, Belmont, Oliver W. Smith, Lowell. 


Francis E. Cushing, Holliston, 
Hugh R. Bean, Marlborough, 
Francis W. Warren, Stow, 
Charles H. Fiske, Weston, 
John C. Blasdel, Lexington, 
Levi S. Gould, Melrose, 
Nathan P. Pratt, Reading, 
Dudley Foster, Billerica, 
Benjamin J. Williams, Lowell, 
James B? Francis, bi 
Josiah Gates, ~ ss 
William McFarlin, “f 
George W. Heywood, Westford, 
Levi Wallace, Pepperell, 
Jonathan Pierce, Townsend. 





78 


Worcester County. 


YEAS. 


Windsor N. White, Winchendon, 
J. A. Rich, Royalston, 

Charles Heywood, Gardner, 
William Mixter, Hardwick, 

J. Otis Hale, Hubbardston, 
George E. Towne, Fitchburg, 
Otis T. Ruggles, * “ 
Howard M. Lane, Leominster, 
Solomon H. Howe, Bolton, 
Charles W. Worcester, Clinton, 
Wallace McFarland, W. Boylston, 
P. A. Beaman, Princeton, 

D. A. Goddard, Worcester, 
Warren Williams, “ 

Edward S. Stebbins,“ 

P. A. Thompson, “ 

Samuel Appleton, Southborough, 
Silas Dunton, Millbury, 

Lory S. Watson, Leicester. 


NAYS. 


A. G. Walker, Worcester, 
J. S. Woodworth, “ 

J. H. Wood, Grafton, 
William Knowlton, Upton, 
Isaac H. Stearns, Milford, . 
Moses Farnum, Blackstone, 
*Lament B. Corbin, Oxford, 
William D. Jones, Douglas, 


Amasa C. Morse, Sturbridge, 


Joseph B. Lombard, Warren. 


Hampshire County * 


Henry S. Porter, Hatfield, 
Horace Ward, Amherst. 


William F. Arnold, Northampton, 
Edward H. Lathrop, Huntington, 
Henry Bassett, Ware. 


Hampden County. * ° 


Thaddeus K. DeWolf, Chester. 





Joel B. Williams, Monson, 
William R. Sessions, Wilbraham, 
Charles L. Shaw, Springfield, 
Tilly Haynes, 

George Walker, - “ 

Kidwin N. Snow, Chicopee, 

Kzra H. Flagg, Holyoke, 

Nalph S. Brown, Granville, 
Charles A. Fox, W. Springfield, 
William G. Bates, Westfield. 


Franklin County. 


John D. Flagg, Orange, 


Frederick W. Field, Leverett, 
George W. Potter, Greenfield, 


79 


Franklin County—Con. 
YEAS. Nays. 


Thomas J. Field, Northfield, ° 
Henry S. Ranney, Ashfield, 
Samuel T. Field, Shelburne, 
Roger H. Leavitt, Charlemont. 


Berkshire Oounty. 


Fred. A. Morey, Williamstown, - | Thomas F. Plunkett, Pittsfield, 
Shepherd Thayer, Adams, Edw’d A. Hulbert, Gt. Barrington. 
Jonas A. Champney, Cheshire, 
Henry H. Cook, Richmond, 
Charles J. Kittredge, Hinsdale, 
Mason Van Dusen, Stockbridge, 
Alanson Crittenden, Otis, 

A. J. Freeman, New Marlborough. 








Norfolk County. 


George M. Hobbs, Roxbury, John R. Bullard, Dedham, 
Edw’d H. R. Ruggles, Dorchester, | Charles A. Hewins, W. Roxbury, 
John H. Robinson, = Isaac H. Meserve, Roxbury, 

E. Watson Arnold, Braintree, John Quincy Adams, Quincy, 
Daniel Howard, Randolph, Alvah Raymond, Jr., Weymouth, 
Joseph Leavitt, Canton, Henry Newton, se 
Thomas Parsons, Brookline. . Orlando B. Crane, Stoughton, 


Leander S. Daniels, Medway, 
James T. Ford, Wrentham, 
George K. Daniell, Needham. 


‘ Bristol County. 

John H. Swain, Easton, Augustus Lane, Norton, 

Nathan 8. Williams, Taunton, Jeremy B. Dennett, Taunton, 

Oliver H. P. Brown, N. Bedford, | Walter S. Sprague, th 

Lewis S. Judd, Fairhaven. William A. King, Rehoboth, 
Abraham G. Hart, Fall River, 
Weaver Osborn, 2 
Iram Smith, € 


KE. P. Brownell, Westport, 
William Barker, Jr., Dartmouth, 
Joseph W. Cornell, New Befford, 
James B. Wood, : 
William H. Reynard, _ “ 


80 


Plymouth County 


YEAS. 
John Manson, Scituate, 
Eden Wadsworth, Duxbury, 
Charles H. Drew, Plymouth, 


C. C. Bixby, North Bridgewater, 


Walter B. Studley, Abington, 
Dan Packard, ‘6 


Nays. 
David Cushing, 2d, Hingham, 
Morton V. Bonney, Hanover, 
Josiah S. Hammond, Plympton, 
George Sandford, Wareham, 
Levi A. Abbott, Middleborough, 
Simeon Perkins, Bridgewater. 


Barnstable County. 


Samuel H. Gould, Brewster, 
Henry Shortle, Provincetown. 


Heman B. Chase, Yarmouth, 
Alvah Holway, Sandwich, 
Lemuel B. Simmons, Barnstable, 
Seth Crowell, Dennis, 

Ensign B. Rogers, Orleans. 


Dukes County. 


| Charles Bradley, Tisbury. 


Nantucket County. 


| William H. Waitt, Nantucket. 


Yeas, 111; Nays, 92. 


ABSENT OR NOT VOTING. 


Murdock Matheson, Boston, 
Charles R. Train, ti 
Hiram §S. Shurtleff, x 
Daniel H. Whitney, “ 

H. Jewell, (Speaker,) “ 
Thomas J.-Fay, a 
Nathaniel C. Nash, e 
Edward H. Pierce, ie 

Noble H. Hill, a 
Charles W. Wilder, <“ 
Hubbard W. Tilton, “ 

J. W. F. Willson, of 
Charles Bird, Jr., North Chelsea, 
W. H. P. Wright, Lawrence, 
John K. Tarbox, - 

John A. Wiley, North Tey By 
Jacob P. Towne, Topsfield, 
George H. Long, Charlestown, 


John Livermore, Cambridge, 
David D. Hart, Woburn, 

J. F. Mansfield, South Reading, 
Charles Wing, Uxbridge, 

J. H. Hathaway, Charlton, , 
Richmond Kingman, Cummington, 
Philo Chapin, Granby, 

John Severson, Springfield, 
William Seaver, Roxbury, 
Charles Stanwood, “ 

Henry E. Pond, Franklin, 
Willard Blackinton, Attleborough, 
Job M. Leonard, Somerset, 
William Whiting, Pembroke, 
Eleazer Richmond, Lakeville, 
Irving Bates, East Bridgewater, 
John H. Bangs, Eastham, 

Eben N. Wardwell, Swampscott. 


81 


YrAas AND NAYS IN THE SENATE. 


Third Reading. 

YEAS.—Messrs. Alexander, Bowerman, Brooks, 
Chaffee, Clark, Crane, 
Crocker, Gaston, Gould, 
Ingalls, McPhail, Mudge, 
Oliver, Penniman, Pond, 
Sawyer, Schouler, Smith, 
Stevens, Sutton, Wilcox, 
Wheeler.—22. 

Nays.—Messrs. Allen, Brown, Chace, 
Dame, — Fuller, Pitman, 
Snow, Tweed.—8 

FEnactment. 

Yras.— Messrs. Alexander, Bowerman, Brooks, 
Clark, Crane, Crocker, 
Fay, Gaston, ~ Gould, 
Ingalls, McPhail, Mudge, 
Oliver, Penniman, Pond, 
Sawyer, Schouler, Smith, 
Sutton, Wilcox, Wheeler.—21. 

Nays.—Messrs. Allen, Avery, Chace, 
Cheever, Claflin, Dame, 
Fuller, Giles, Pitman, 
Tweed.—10. 


The following senators did not vote on either question :— 
Messrs. Brastow, Needham, Partridge, Todd and Weston. 


ay 


BASIS OF 


82 


CouNTY oF SUFFOLK. 


A AX MTTONGA NETL 1875. 
[Established by Chapter 181, Acts of 1865.] 








TOWNS. 


Boston, 
Chelsea, 

North Chelsea, 
Winthrop, . 


Totals, . 


Amesbury, . 
Andover, 
Beverly, 
Boxford, 
Bradford, 
Danvers, 
Essex, . 
Georgetown, 
Gloucester, . 
Groveland, . 
Hamilton, 
Haverhill, 
Ipswich, 
Lawrence, . 
Lynn, . : 
Lynnfield, . 
Manchester, 
Marblehead, 
Methuen, 
Middleton, . 
Nahant, 
Newbury, 
Newburyport, 


North Andover, . 


Rockport, 
Rowley, 
Salem, 
Salisbury, 
Saugus, 


South Danvers, . 


Swampscott, 
Topsfield, 
Wenham, 


West Newbury, 


Totals, . 


Property. 


$378,303,357 
7,706,745 
860,359 
406,239 


a 


$387 ,276,700 


Tax of $1,000, in- 
cluding polls at 


1-2 mill each. 


$338 83 
8 05 

84 

45 


CouNTy oF ESSEX. 


$1,677,632 
2,702,426 
3,359,216 
631,942 
832,083 
2.237,630 
912.417 
760,473 
4,505,390 
666,119 
481,423 
4,488,107 
1,556,491 
11,240,191 
10,053,309 
604,617 
766,383 
; 2.131,268 
1,292,951 
392,445 

517,194 

767,849 
7,659,960 
1,830,829 
1,279,717 
511,171 
16,192,359 
1,680,689 
1,300,074 
3,819,766 
1,449,859 
687,610 

: 463,558 
: 940,919 


$90,393,467 








00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 





00 


$1 94 
2 85 
3 67 

65 
91 
2 43 


11 42 
10 42 


— 
RC ROT Heat 
on) 

x] 


$95 25 








Amounts paid by 
each Town of a Tax 
of $1,000,000. 


$338,830 00 
8,050 00 
840 00 

450 00 





$348,170 00 


$1,940 60 
- 2.850 00 
3,670 00 
650 00 
910 00 
2.430 00 
1,000 00 
890 00 
5,090 00 
770 00 
500 00 
5,130 00 
1,670 00 
11,420 00 
10,420 00 
620 00 
850 00 
2780 00 
1,420 00 
420 00 
480 00 
800 00 
7,800 00 
1,880 00 
1,480 00 
580 00 
15,970 00 
1,830 00 
1,330 00 
3,970 00 
1,420 00 
730 00 
500 00 
1,050 00 





$95,250 00 





83 





TOWNS. 


Acton, . 
Ashby, 
Ashland, 
Bedford, 
Belmont, 
Billerica, 
Boxborough, 
Brighton, 
Burlington, . 
Cambridge, . 
Carlisle, 
Charlestown, 
Chelmsford, . 
Concord, 
Dracut, 
Dunstable, . 
Framingham, 
Groton, 
Holliston, 
Hopkinton, . 
Lexington, . 
Lincoln, 
Littleton, 
Lowell, 
Malden, 
Marlborough, 
Medford, 
Melrose, 
Natick, 
Newton, ; 
North Reading, 
Pepperell, 
Reading, 
Sherborn, 
Shirley, 
Somerville, . 
South Reading, 
Stoneham, . 
Stow, . 
Sudbury, 
Tewksbury, . 
Townsend, . 
Tyngsborough, 
Waltham, 
Watertown, . 
Wayland, 


West Cambridge, 


Westford, 
Weston, 
Wilmington, 
Winchester, 


Woburn, 


Totals, . 











Property. 


$854,719 
508,393 
632,632 
489,123 
3,521,429 
1,086,563 
938,592 
3,812,694 
408,136 
95,897,971 
354,122 
18,292,544 
1,546,508 
1,658,881 
1,109,304 
391,146 
2.799.308 
1,553,920 
1,502,682 
1,595,257 
1,747,459 
606,833 
632,380 
20,980,041 
4,040,431 
2 530,622 
5,491,054 
1,704,583 
1,841,121 
9,800,738 
577,389 
924,405 
1,293,056 
869,539 
676,275 
5,683,244 
1,778,786 
1,333,637 
764,278 
1,052,778 
747,624 
737,352 
348,137 
5,552,109 
2.757 ,957 
658,073 
2. $33,684 
998,438 
1,103,274 
563,181 
1,455,772 
4,986,549 





County or MIDDLESEX. 





00 
00 
00 





$155,324,723 00 








Tax of $1,000, in- 


cluding polls at 
1-2 mill each. 


$0 92 


SS SE Oo Be ONnNHOwWRS ol ee) 
on ~I Ve) 
“I es) S 


oH HED 
> 
o 


$157 21 











Amounts paid by 
each Town of a Tax 


of $1,000,000. 


$920 00 
580 00 
760 00 
520 00 

3,170 00 

1,130 00 
260 00 

3,700 00 
430 00 

25,210 00 
380 00 
18,480 00 

1,580 00 

1,670 00 

1,200 00 
400 00 

2.900 00 

1,700 00 

1,690 00 

1,830 00 

1,770 00 
620 00 
660 00 

20,740 00 

4.260 00 

3,060 00 

5,310 00 

1,790 00 

2.150 00 

9,370 00 
640 00 

1,010 00 

1,400 00 
880 00 
730 00 

5,760 00 

1,880. 00 

1,570 00 
840 00 

1,100 00 
730 00 
890 00 
370 00 

5,430 00 

2.790 00 
700 00 

2.770 00 

1,040 00 

1,090 00 
590 00 

1,460 00 

5,250 00 


re ene 


$157,210 00 


TOWNS. 


Ashburnham, 
Athol, . 
Auburn, 
Barre, . 
Berlin, 
Blackstone, . 
Bolton, 
Boylston, 
Brookfield, . 
Charlton, 
Clinton, 
Dana, . 
Douglas, 
Dudley, 
Fitchburg, . 
Gardner, 
Grafton, 
Hardwick, . 
Harvard, 
Holden, 
Hubbardston, 
Lancaster, . 
Leicester, 
Leominster, . 
Lunenburg, . 
Mendon, 
Milford, 
Millbury, 
New Braintree, . 
North Brookfield, 
Northborough, 
Northbridge, 
Oakham, 
Oxford, 
Paxton, 
Petersham, . 
Phillipston, . 
Princeton, 
Royalston, . 
Rutland, 
Shrewsbury, 
Southborough, 
Southbridge, 
Spencer, 
Sterling, 
Sturbridge, . 
Sutton, 
Templeton, . 
Upton, 
Uxbridge, 
Warren, 





84 


CounTy oF WORCESTER. 


Property. 


$789,081 
1,085,516 
503,928 
1,797,762 
401,831 
1,993,024 
636,514 
467,551 
973,359 
909,729 
2,017,299 
249.117 
871,651 
681,471 
4.94(),252 
905,324 
1,777,973 
1,099,438 
932,514 
853,695 
741,433 
1,004,802 
1,615,868 
1,933,122 
731,560 
668,709 
3,275,231 
1,392,456 
553,709 
1,034,978 
898,385 
1,104,648 
318,003 
1,137,476 
297,237 
615,779 
320,834 
778.666 
711,872 
523,646 
1,026,968 
957,409 
1,696,264 
1,363,465 
1,087,710 
864,875 
1,141,588 
979,116 
736,082 
1,624,174 
985,109 





00 
00 
00 
00 


00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 


00 
00 
00 
00 
00 


00 
00 
00 
00 
00 





Tax of $1,000, in- 
cluding polls at 
1-2 mill each, 


$0 94 
1 31 

54 
1 89 

47 
2 31 
73 
50 
12 
01 
10 
30 
01 
78 
58 
09 
99 
15 
99 
94 
81 
05 


ed ee od 


| 0 cell aoe 
~] 
—) 


a 
=) 
lo) 


soo 
on 
=~] 


b— 
~] 
bo 











Amounts paid by 
each Town of « Tax 
of $1,000,000. 


$940 00 
1,310 00 
540 00 
1,890 00 
470 00 
2310 00 
730 00 
500 00 
1,120 00 
1,010 00 
2100 00 
300 00 
1,010 00 
780 00 
4,580 00 
1,090 00 
1,990 00 
1,150 00 
990 00 
940 00 
810 00 
1,050 00 
1,700 00 
2.070 00 
770 00 
720 00 
4,060 00 
1,590 00 
570 00 
1,180 00 
930 00 
1,250 00 
380 00 
1,290 00 
340 00 
750 00 
360 00 
820 00 
7380 00 
580 00 
1,080 00 
1,030 00 
1,890 00 
1,370 00 
1,130 00 
980 00 
1,240 00 
1,160 00 
870 00 
1,720 00 
1,130 00 





TOWNS. 


Webster, . - 
West Boylston, 
West Brookfield, . 
Westborough, 
Westminster, : 
Winchendon, - 
Worcester, . 


Totals, . 


- Amherst, . . 
Belchertown, 
Chesterfield, 


Cummington, : 


Easthampton, 
Enfield, 

Goshen, : 
Granby, . : 
Greenwich, . é 
Hadley, 

Hatfield, 
Huntington, 
Middlefield, . 
Northampton, 
Pelham, 
Plainfield, 
Prescott, 

South Hadley, 
Southampton, . 
Ware, . : : 
Westhampton, . 
Williamsburg, . 
Worthington, 


Totals, . 


Agawam, . 
Blandford, . 
Brimfield, . : 
Chester, : 
Chicopee, . 
Granville, 
Holland, 


County oF WorcEsSTER—Concluded. 


Property. 


$1,060,039 00 

: 860,922 00 
: 679,389 00 
1,337,740 00 
721,267 00 

; 1,160,952 00 
19,701,244 00 


os 


$80,857,766 00 





Tax of $1,000, in- 




















cluding polls at 
1-2 mill each. 


$1 26 
98 
17 
TSE 

81 
1 39 
20 43 


$88 70 


CouNTY OF HAMPSHIRE. 


$1,860,457 00 
1,108,591 00 
372,790 00 

342.842 00 
1,700,599 00 
610,644 00 

152,796 00 

470,125 00 
: 961,416 00 
1,279,320 00 
1,442,691 00 
409,395 00 

351,882 00 


4,789,965 00. 


197,457 00 

239,097 00 

921,712 00 
1,103.491 00 
502,448 00 
1,306,545 00 
, 291,384 00 
1,095,693 00 
409,655 00 


$1 95 - 


Le 7 


1 70 











Amounts paid by 
each Town of a Tax 
of $1,000,000. 


$1,260 00 
980 00 
770 00 
1,510 00 
810 00 
1,390. 00 

20,430 00 


ee ee eee 


$38,700 00 


$1,950 00 
1,270 00 
430 00 
410 00 
1,700 00 
640 00 
180 00 
520 00 
300 00 
1,360 00 
1,420 00 
480 00 
390 00 
4,920 00 
9250 00 
290 00 
260 00 
1,190 00 
560 00 
1,480 00 
310 00 
1,170 00 
460 00 


ee ee em ee ee 


CounTy oF HAMPDEN. 


$816,850 00 
529,150 00 

719,750 00 

445,900 00 
3,128,250 00 

; 516,277 00 
131,000 00 





$0 90 


$21,940 00 


3900 00 
600 00 
770. 00 
540 00 

3,560 00 
610 00 
150 00 





86 


County or HAMPDEN—Concluded. 














Tax of $1,000, in- | Amounts paid by 


TOWNS. Property. cluding polls at 
1-2 mill each. of $1,000,000. 
Holyoke, $2,579,250 00 $2 77 $2,770 00 
Longmeadow, 1,016,500 00 1 05 1,050 00 
Ludlow, 455,050 00 52 520 00 
Monson, 1,316,700 00 1 43 1,430 00° 
Montgomery, 158,850 00 18 180 00 
Palmer, 1,254,000 00 1 45 1,450 00 
Russell, 212,810 00 25 250 00 
Southwick, . 604,200 00 66 660 00 
Springfield, . 18,379,212 00 14 25 14,250 00 
Tolland, 298,588 00 a2 320 00 
Wales, 254,600 00 29 290 00 
Westfield, . : 3,244,600 00 5 52 3,520 00 
West Springfield, 1,319,550 00 1 38 1,380 00 
Wilbraham, 872,100 00 98 980 00 
Totals, . $33,253,117 00 $36 16 $36,160 00 
CouNnTY OF FRANKLIN. 
Ashfield, $611,869 00 $0 68 $680 00 
Bernardston, 484,895 00 52 520 00 
Buckland, 526,468 00 67 670 00 
Charlemont, 367,216 00 43 430 00. 
Colrain, . : 637,954 00 72 720 00 
Conway, 703,919 00 80 800 00 
Deerfield, 1,215,423 00 1 38 1,380 00 
Erving, 173,229 00 21 210 00 
Gilly: : 390,569 00 42 420 00 
Greenfield, . 1,899,806 00 2 00 2,000 00 
Hawley, 182,638 00 50 300 00 
Heath, 232,551 00 27 270 00 
Leverett, 284,644 00 d4 340 00 
Leyden, 278,647 00 30 300 00 
Monroe, 79,375 00 10 100 00 
Montague, . 606,737 00 70 700 00 
New Salem, 336,476 00 42 420 00 
Northfield; . 712,054 00 81 810 00 
Orange, 599.243 00 17 770 00 
Rowe, 180,425 00 21 210 00 
Shelburne, . 822,620 00 89 890 00 
Shutesbury, . 219,250 00 27 270 00 
Sunderland, 413,827 00 46 460 00 
Warwick, 220,658 00 32 320 00 
Wendell, 201,657 00 24 240 00 
Whately, 665,972 00 72 720 00 
Totals, . $18,048,120 00 $14 95 $14,950 00 


















































each Town of a Tax 


87 


CouNTY OF BERKSHIRE. 








DOW ays. 


Adams, 

Alford, 

Becket, 
Cheshire, 
Clarksburg, . 
Dalton, 
Egremont, 
Florida, 

Great Barrington, 
Hancock, 
Hinsdale, 
Lanesborough, 
Lee, 

Lenox, 
Monterey, 

Mount Washineton, 
New Ashford, 
New Marlborough, 
Otis, : 
Peru, . 
Pittsfield, 
Richmond, 
Sandisfield, . 
Savoy, 

Sheffield, 
Stockbridge, 
Tyringham, . 
Washington, 
West Stockbridge, 
Williamstown, 
Windsor, 


Totals, . 


Bellingham, 
Braintree, 
Brookline, . 
Canton, 
Cohasset, 
Dedham, 
Dorchester, . 
Dover, : 
Foxborough, 
Franklin, 
Medfield, 
Medway, 
Milton, 





Property. 


$3,350,551 00 
340,490 00 
478,120 00 
675,997 00 
133,234 00 
988,160 00 
587,619 00 
152,323 00 

2.177,071 00 
490,299 00 
801,755 00 
661,048 00 

1,682,411 00 
827,539 00 
292.117 00 

87,676 00 
108,662 00 
610,727 00 
311,595 00 
914,930 00 

6,378,878 00 
502,277 00 
612,943 00 
273,400 00 

1,206,820 00 

1,323,883 00 
999,594 00 
989,398 00 
613,816 00 

1,160,587 00 
303,324 00 


$27,937,444 00 

















Tax of $1,000, in- 
cluding polls at 
1-2 mill each. 


$3 06 
35 
57 
78 
16 


$30 08 


County oF NORFOLK. 


$463,951 00 
1,582,530 00 
12,107,550 00 
2.211,313 00 
1,174,953 00 
4,857,587 00 
12,521,038 00 

358,774 00 
1,284,524 00 
1,046,874 00 

613,155 00 


2,251,393 00 


4.971,263 00 


$0 54 
1 79 

10 85 
2 28 

Lae 

4 96 

11 94 
38 

1 42 

1 16 

66 

1 43 

3 93 














Amounts paid by 
each Town of a Tax 


of $1,000.000. 


$3,660 00 
350 00 
570 00 
780 00 

160 00 
960 00 
610 00 
280 00 

2.310 00 
500 00 
860 00 
710 00 

1,840 00 
900 00 
340 00 
100 00 
110 00 
710 00 
400 00 
240 00 

6,480 00 
550 00 
690 00 
340 00 

1,310 00 

1,330 00 
330 00 
330 00 
720 00 

1,126 00 
350 00 


$30,080 00 








$540 00 
1,790 00 
10,850 00 
2.280 00 
1,250 00 
4,960 00 
11,940 00 
380 00 
1,420 00 
1,160 00 
660 00 
1,430 00 
3,930 00 


8S 


County or NorrotK—Concludced. 





TOWNS. 


Needham, 
Quincy, 
Randolph, 
Roxbury, 
Sharon; > 
Stoughton, . 
Walpole, 


West Roxbury, 


Weymouth, . 
Wrentham, . 


Totals, . 


Acushnet, 
Attleborough, 
Berkley, 
Dartmouth, . 
Dighton, 
Easton, 
Fairhaven, . 
Fall River, . 
Freetown, 
Mansfield, 
New Bedford, 
Norton, 
Raynham, 
Rehoboth, 
Seekonk, 
Somerset, 
Swanzey, 
Taunton, 
Westport, 


Totals, . 


Abington, 
Bridgewater, 
Carver, 
Duxbury, 


East Bridgewater, 


Halifax, 
Hanover, 
Hanson, 
Hingham, 


Hull, 








Property. 


$1,798,498 00 
3,833,508 00 
2,925,254 00 

23,808,776 00 

723,752 00 
1,742,453 00 
1,132,102 00 

10,631,146 00 
3,345,394 00 
1,412,051 00 





$95,097,794 00 


$656,500 00 
291,660 00 
316,002 00 
2,432,270 00 
776,779 00 
1,930,900 00 
1,778,217 00 
12,632,419 00 
706,117 00 
750,442 00 
20,525,790 00 
842,527 00 
1,115,026 00 
764,906 00 
496,844 00 
865,618 00 
755,680 00 
8,463,074 00 
1,453,897 00 





$59,464,688 00 


$3,059,801 00 
1,992,756 00 
459,583 00 
1,006,782 00 
1,136,937 00 
354,039 00 
747,591 00 
458,168 00 
92,391,437 00 
150,864 00 














Tax of $1,000, in- 
cluding polls at 
1-2 mill each. 


$1 86 
97 
16 
74 
79 
02 
22 
79 
95 
54 


bS 
ho Co Go 


kr 0) CO Fe bo 


$93 66 


County oF BRISTOL. 


$0 70 
2 54 
37 
2 48 
90 
2 04 
1 84 
2.92 
77 
90 
19. 77 
94 
W15 
86 
54 
97 
82 
8 85 
1 59 


$60 95 


CouNnTY oF PLYMOUTH. 


$3 71 
2 18 
53 
18 
42 
40 
83 
54 
2 53 

16 


1 
1 

















Amounts paid by 


each Town of a Tax 


of $1,000,000. 


$1,860 00 
3,970 00 
3,160 00 

22,740 00 

790 00 
2.020 00 
1,220 00 
9,790 00 
3,950 00 
1,540 00 


ed 


$93,660 00 


$700 00 
2.540 00 
370 00 
2.480 00 
900 00 
2,040 00 
1,840 00 
12,920 00 
770 00 
900 00 
19,770 00 
940 00 
1,150 00 
860 00 
540 00 
970 00 
820 00 
8,850 00 
1,590 00 


$60,950 00 





$3,710 00 
2,180 00 
530 00 
1,180 00 
1,420 00 
400 00 
830 00 
540 00 
2.530 00 
160 00 


89 


County oF PLryMoutH—Concluded. 





Tax of $1,000, in-| Amounts paid by 


each Town of a Tax 

































































TOWNS. Property. cluding polls at 
1-2 mill each. of $1.000,000. 

Kingston, $1,334,298 00 $1 34 $1,340 00 
Lakeville, 571,124 00 64 640 00 
Marion, A A 459,009 00 51 510 00 
Marshfield, . 853,777 00 94 940 00 
Mattapoisett, 540,118 00 95 950 00 
Middleborough, 2,132,878 00 2 44 2,440 00 
North Bridgewater, “ 2,209,339 00 ae ek 2,710 00 
Pembroke, . ; 575,993 00 68 680 00 
Plymouth, . 3,145,119 00 3 41 3,410 00 
Plympton, 304,305 00 36 360 00 
Rochester, . 547,181 00 63 630 00 
Scituate, 852,105 00 1 03 1,030 00 
South Scituate, 840,924 00 91 910 00 
Wareham, . A 882,580 00 1 09 1,090 00 
West Bridgewater, . 945,350 00 1 02 1,020 00 

Totals, . $27,932,058 00 $31 84 $31,840 00 

CouNnTY OF BARNSTABLE. 

Barnstable, . $2,265,407 00 $2 48 $2,480 00 
Brewster, 801,452 00 84 840 00 
Chatham, : 1,100,543 00 1 ayy | 1,270 00 
Dennis, : 1,181,339 00 1 38 1,380 00 
Eastham, , 219,948 00 29 290 00 
Falmouth, : 1,375,661 00 1 50 1,500 00 
Harwich, f 1,025,217 00 20 1,280 00 
Orleans, : 558,858 00 70 700 00 
Provincetown, 3 1,576,145 00 1 74 1,740 00 
Sandwich, . : 1,669,105 00 1 85 1,850 00 
Truro, : 361,717 00 52 520 00 
Wellfleet, ; 700,165 00 88 880 00 
Yarmouth, . : 1,440,641 00 1 52 1,520 00 

Totals, . $14,276,198 00 $16 25 $16,250 00 

County oF DUKES. 

Chilmark, . ‘ , $350,801 00 $0 38 $380 00 
Edgartown, . ‘ 1,035,467 00 113 1,130 00 
Gosnold, 112,993 00 11 110 00 
Tisbury, . 684,714 00 79 790 00 

Totals, . : $2,183,975 00 $2 41 $2,410 00 

County or NANTUCKET. 

Nantucket, . : ; $2,152,568 00 $2 43 $2,430 00 





hs 


On the third reading the vote by Counties was as follows :— 


Yeas. Nays. | Yeas. Nays. 
Suffolk, . : 5k: 4) Berkshire, . : enue 2 


Essex, 2 : . 125006 Norfolk, 6 10 
Middlesex, : sO Bristol, . . Ahroonyy 
Worcester, : « 19m Plymouth, . 3 > ie 6 
Hampshire, é Hee 3 Barnstable, : aren 9) 
Hampden, . ; - 1 10 | Dukes and Nantucket, 0 2 


Franklin, . : ed | 0 


The changes of votes were as follows: Messrs. Collins of Boston 
and Cushing of Holliston voted “ yea” on the third reading and “nay” 
afterwards; Messrs. Drew of Plymouth and Freeman of New Marl- 
borough voted “yea” on the third reading, “nay” on the engrossment, and 
did not vote on the enactment; Mr. Crane of Stoughton voted “nay” 
on the third reading and engrossment, and “yea” on the enactment; 
Mr. Swain of Easton voted “ yea” on the third reading, did not vote 
on the engrossment, and voted “nay” on the enactment. 

The following gentlemen who did not vote on the third reading after- 
wards voted as follows: Yeas, Messrs. Blackington of Attleborough, Bird 
of Chelsea, Fay, Hill, Train and Whitney of Boston, Seaver and Stan- 
wood of Roxbury, Wardwell of Swampscott, Wing of Uxbridge, and 
Wright of Lawrence. Vays, Messrs. Bangs of HKastham, Bates of 
East Bridgewater, Brown of Granville, Chapin of Granby, Hathaway 
of Charlton, Matheson, Pierce, Tilton, Willson and Wilder of Boston, 
Pond of Franklin, Richmond of Lakeville, Tarbox of Lawrence, Towne 
of Topsfield, Whiting of Pembroke, and Wiley of North Andover. 

I commend the lists of the yeas and nays to the careful study of the 
tax-payers and voters of the State. ‘Taking from the list of yeas the 
the names of representatives from towns lying on the Fitchburg, Ver- 
mont and Massachusetts, and Troy and Greenfield Railroads, it will be 
seen that Suffolk and Berkshire are the only counties which gave ma- 
_jorities for the tunnel. We readily understand how towns under the 
influence of those selfish corporations should vote as they did; but the 
people of the Eastern and Southern counties will naturally ask why the 
irepresentatives from those counties did not vote as solid against this 
:swindle as Franklin County did in its favor. 


91 


From the “basis of taxation,” the amount which each county and 
town will pay of the cost of the tunnel hereafter, even assuming that it 
will be completed with the five million appropriation, can easily be 
figured. I have shown that the cost upon that assumption will be over 
eight millions, and that the ultimate cost of completing it, from this time, 
will be twelve or fifteen millions. Now, multiplying by eight the 
amount paid by each county or town of the tax on one million you have 
the amount to be paid by each county or town, on the assumption that 
five millions with interest will finish the tunnel. Multiplying each of 
these amounts by twelve or fifteen, you have the amount each pays of 
the ultimate cost. 

But this is not the whole or the worst of the burden which this. 
wretched job imposes upon the people. Suppose the tunnel is finished 
in seven years with this appropriation. It will then have cost, from the : 
beginning, nearly sixteen millions, including interest. The interest on 
this will be a million annually, and this will be a perpetual burden, rest- 
ing upon us and our posterity forever. If the debt is not then paid,. 
it is obvious that the burden of interest continues; if the debt should 
then be paid, the whole amount of principal and interest paid up to that 
time will constitute a fixed investment, upon which interest must be 
paid forever; and for this obvious reason, that the whole cost and 
interest will have been sunk—no income, as I have abundantly shown, 
ever accruing from the enterprise, except, possibly, upon two or three 
millions. And if the cost shall be increased, as I have shown it will, 
the annual burden will be proportionally increased. 

To illustrate the burdens which those who voted for this appropri- 
ation imposed upon their constituents, let us look at a few figures. The 
senator from the Island District, one senator from Plymouth, two from 
Norfolk, three from Essex, voted “yea;” the following table shows the 
amount of taxation which their votes aided to impose upon the people: 











Permanent 
annual tax for 
interest. 


Tax on | Tax on 
$8,000,000. | $15,000,000. 








Island District, . : : - | $38,720 00 $72,600 00 | $4,840 00 
Plymouth County, : . | 254,720 00 477,600 00 | 81,840 00 
Norfolk, deducting Roxbury, - | 567,360 00 | 1,063,800 00 | 70,920 00 
Essex County, . - | 762,000 00 | 1,428,750 00 | 95,250 00 











92 


The following table gives similar figures for a few of the towns 
whose representatives voted “ yea :”— 








Permanent 











Tax on Tax on 
$8,000,000. | $15,000,000, | 7708 ak Pr 
Abington, . 4 ‘ ‘ . | $29,680 00 $55,650 00 | $3,710 00 


Braintree, . 4 : : . 14,820 00 26,850 00 1,750 00 
Randolph, . : : : : 25,280 00 47,400 00 3,160 00 
Provincetown, . f . : 13,920 00 26,100 00 1,740 00 
Dorchester, . : : 95,520 00 179,100 00 | 11,940 00 


Be 


Canton,* .) (| 18,240 00 | 83,200 Go | 2.280 00 
Miltons (Or . (ol eN Nerolk aise 31.440 00 | 58,950 00 | 3,930 00 
Sharon; «) h-(+n trict. 4} 6320 00 | 11,850 00| 790 00 
Walpole, .} L| 9,760 00 | 18300 00 | 1,220 00 











* With the other towns in the Eleventh Norfolk District misrepresented by Mr. 
Leavitt of Canton. 


Voters of Massachusetts! Carry out these figures for every town 
and county. I make no sectional appeal. I know you will cheerfully 
submit to taxation for purposes which benefit any portion of the State. 
But when you remember that this expenditure benefits no section; that 
it develops the resources of no section; that it brings no new traffic to 
Boston; that it only puts money in the pockets of two railroad corpo- 
rations, look well to your candidates for senators and representatives. 


93 


Tue Lossy 


. is well described in the following extracts from an article in 
the “ Springfield Republican ” of June 18 :— 


“ First, as to the personnel of the lobby. The chief man of them all 
is E. D. Foster, of Cheshire, a rough, tobacco-chewing Yankee, who 
was cut out for a first-rate horse jockey, but is probably spoiled now for 
any honest (?) occupation. His chief assistant and fugleman is Robert 
C. Nichols, of Boston, usually called ‘Bob’ for short, and Charles 
Porter. The lobby assignation house is at No. 5 Avon Place, a quiet, 
if not respectable locality, leading off from Washington Street, near the 
Theatre Comique. ‘The proprietor of the house is Charles Hayward, 
formerly a lawyer of Springfield, or perhaps it would be more correct 
to say, the proprietor is Mrs. Hayward, his wife. In this house the 
lobby have rooms, and there the members of the legislature are invited 
to a ‘free and easy’ every Tuesday and Thursday evening during the 
session. There ‘Gen’ Foster and ‘Bob’ are always to be found, one 
attending at the door while the other pours out the liquors. From 
eight o’clock in the evening till twelve or two o’clock at night, members 
of the legislature come and go. Liquors and cigars are plenty and 
free, and there are facilities for a hand at cards, for all who like, so that 
it is no wonder all get pretty jolly, and no remark is excited when the 
president of the Senate joins the model farmer from Bolton, Mr. Howe, 
in a jovial song or dance. On breaking up, each member is reminded 
that a ‘little matter’ is coming up to-morrow, which it is important to 
have passed, and the little matter always passes. It is said that $2,500 
a year rent is paid for the place, and so anxious are some of the mem- 
bers to have it kept up, that they even contribute to its support. For 
instance, this year, Mr. Howe, of Bolton, is put down for $200, and 
doubtless he will get his money back in some way. This is the place 
where President Clark of the agricultural college was wont to refresh 
himself in former times after his arduous labors in behalf of the pro- 
hibitory law, and here is where the senator from Eastern Hampden, 
Mr. Alexander, has taken those degrees in sanctity that: entitled him to 
canonization et the hands of the North Adams people, assembled last 
week to have a jollification over the success of the tunnel. Here it is 
claimed that thirty of the forty senators, including the president, have 
had their convivial headquarters during the past session, and three- 
fourths of the House have been more or less constant attendants. If 

12 


94 


Berkshire people want to know more about this place, let them ask one 
of the Pittsfield representatives, and the people of Franklin may apply 
to their senator. 

“For this lobby, with its corrupting influences, Massachusetts is in- 
debted to the Hoosac Tunnel. Fifteen years ago it was unknown. 
Now, so arranged and systematized is the business, that when the regu- 
lar hands can’t do the work, Adams and: Westfield, not to mention other 
places, are prompt to send assistance. And so bold have these fellows 
become that they do not confine themselves to the legislative halls, but 
even invade the executive chamber and ply His Excellency with their 
arts and arguments. 

“The tunnel interest does not pay the lobby much money, directly. 
But the lobby works with and for it, and always has, for the influence 
it can obtain to push other things with, and which will pay. As far as 
the tunnel itself is concerned, it is put through on the ‘ you-tickle-me- 
and-I’ll-tickle-you’ principle. The principal business of Mr. Towne of 
Fitchburg, and Mr. Thayer of North Adams, and other tunnel mana- 
gers, the past session, has been to trade off the votes of themselves and 
their followers for other measures, till, starting with a minority, they 
were able at the close of the session to carry anything they wished with 
a high hand, and command the support of members from all parts of 
the State. 

“Tt has got to that now that everything and every man that will not 
pay tribute to the tunnel and the lobby are put down in short metre, 
while all measures that will are put through with a rush. This year 
more than ever, 


‘He sails to port who sails with me,’ 


has been the boast of the tunnel and the lobby interest. ‘That iniqui- 
tous measure, the Maverick East Boston Bridge project, never would 
have gone through, especially over the governor’s veto, if its friends 
had not promised to vote for the tunnel. It is notorious that Towne of 
Fitchburg, and Tompkins of East Boston, made the bargain. The 
appropriation for Provincetown Harbor would have been voted down if 
the south shore folks had not gone for the tunnel. The permission 
given to the towns along the line of the Williamsburg and North 
Adams Railroad to take stock in the enterprise would have been with- 
held, had not the advocates of that measure given in their adherence to 
the tunnel. Mr. Plunkett of Pittsfield, an old line democrat, went to 
Boston, determined to oppose all appropriations, especially the tunnel. 
If he had done so actively, does any one suppose he would have been 
made State director of the Western Railroad, and could have carried 
the bill for the removal of the Berkshire County buildings to Pittsfield ? 


: 95 


He voted against the tunnel, indeed, if he voted at all; but why didn’t 
he make his promised speech against it, and what did he do with the 
facts and figures furnished him for that purpose? Are there any per- 
sons green enough to suppose the appropriation of $40,000 for the 
Agricultural College at Amherst could have been carried on ‘its 
merits, if Mr. Ward of that town had not in turn, supported the tun- 
nel? If so, let me disabuse their minds at once. Fussy little Mr. 
Mixter of Hardwick, an ardent opponent of the tunnel heretofore, who 
made a speech against it in 1854, and who has been a going to stop 
this squandering of the people’s money all along, became a sudden con- 
vert to the tunnel this year, and after getting all his available means 
into government bonds before the first of May, and thus beyond the 
reach of taxation, voted five millions of other people’s money for the 
tunnel, without flinching. Was it to pay for being put with Mr. 
Plunkett into the directorship of the Western Railroad? If that was 
all, he sold out cheap. Mr. Crittenden of Otis may have supported’ 
the tunnel on principle, but it is more than supposed that he did it, and 
his friends with him, more to get through the appropriation for the Lee 
and New Haven Railroad than anything else. The House virtuously 
voted, one day, not to buy a thousand copies of General Schouler’s five- 
dollar history of ‘Massachusetts in the Rebellion. The mistake was 
discovered and the vote promptly changed the next day. It is needless 
to add that Senator Schouler has cordially supported the tunnel with 
voice and vote. Last year the vote of three millions in aid of the 
Hartford and Erie Railroad was put through by the tunnel people, for 
a consideration, of course, and as a curious illustration of how things go 
here, it may be added that the Hartford and Erie inttrest took up and 
carried the loan to the North Adams and Williamsburg Railroad along 
with its own bill, and without expense to the latter corporation, who put 
in their request late, and had no particular claims or hopes. 

“ But why multiply instances? If I have not given enough to show 
honest people how log-rolling and corruption prevail at Boston, let 
them apply to their representative for more. I will only add that it is 
a fact that at the last end, sixteen members of the House were bought 
for the tunnel by the promise that the per diem should be increased to 
_ $6 a day, and this bargain was kept in the lower branch. But to the 
credit of Senator Bowerman of Berkshire, it should be said that, 
though a friend of the tunnel, he refused to perfect the swindle in the 
upper house. As an illustration of how everything was killed that did 
not bow down to the tunnel Baal, notice the refusal to increase the sal- 
ary of the secretary of the board of state charities, a most worthy offi- 
cer, and whose salary should have been increased as well as that of 
other officials at the State. House. But the bill was introduced and 











p> 


96 


advocated by Mr. Walker, of Springfield, an opponent of the tunnel. 
At the enactment of the five million appropriation bill for the tunnel, 
in the House, was the critical time, and the point where its friends were 
in most fear. Then a tunnel advocate offered Mr. Walker of Spring- 
field sufficient votes to defeat the Hartford and New Haven anti-con- 
solidation bill, if Mr. Walker would forbear to make his intended attack 
on the tunnel bill. The bargain was not consummated, of gourse, and 
the fate of the Hartford and New Haven Railroad bill is too fresh in 
mind to be further mentioned. 

“But I must pause here, though not for want of material, I assure 
you; but I have already said enough to call the attention of the people 
of Massachusetts to the chicanery and corruption which prevails at thé 
capital, and that is all that is necessary. It rests with them to say 
whether our political and material interests shall be left any longer to 
the control of men who, 


‘For every inch that is not fool, is rogue,’ 


and who are 
‘Resolved to ruin or to rule the State,’ 


evidently not caring much which. Can the people, can the Republican 
party stand this thing any longer? Isn’t it about time to be looking 
out for a Hercules who will undertake the job of cleaning out the 
Augean stable in Avon Place?” 


